Castlepoint Shopping Centre
Encyclopedia
Castlepoint Shopping Centre is a retail park
Retail park
In the United Kingdom, a retail park is a grouping of many retail warehouses and superstores with associated car parking. Its North American equivalent is a power centre. Retail parks are found on the fringes of most large towns and cities in highly accessible locations and are aimed at households...

 in Bournemouth
Bournemouth
Bournemouth is a large coastal resort town in the ceremonial county of Dorset, England. According to the 2001 Census the town has a population of 163,444, making it the largest settlement in Dorset. It is also the largest settlement between Southampton and Plymouth...

, Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 occupying a 41 acres (16.6 ha) site containing around 40 shops, including major retailers such as Marks & Spencer
Marks & Spencer
Marks and Spencer plc is a British retailer headquartered in the City of Westminster, London, with over 700 stores in the United Kingdom and over 300 stores spread across more than 40 countries. It specialises in the selling of clothing and luxury food products...

, Gap
Gap (clothing retailer)
The Gap, Inc. is an American clothing and accessories retailer based in San Francisco, California, and founded in 1969 by Donald G. Fisher and Doris F. Fisher. The company has five primary brands: the namesake Gap banner, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Piperlime and Athleta. As of September 2008,...

, Topshop
Topshop
Topshop is a British clothes retailer with shops in over 20 countries and online operations in a number of its markets. Its sales come primarily from women's clothing and fashion accessories...

, Asda
Asda
Asda Stores Ltd is a British supermarket chain which retails food, clothing, general merchandise, toys and financial services. It also has a mobile telephone network, , Asda Mobile...

, Sainsbury's, and B&Q
B&Q
B&Q plc is a multinational DIY and home improvement retailer headquartered in Eastleigh, United Kingdom. It was founded in 1969 and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Kingfisher plc, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange....

. It is situated 3 miles (4.8 km) northeast from the centre of town, off Castle Lane West on the former site of the Hampshire Centre.

History

The centre opened to the public on the 27 October 2003, following a major redevelopment of the site, which had previously been occupied by the Hampshire Shopping Centre for around 35 years. Construction of the centre took over two years and cost some £275 million. On 8 October 2007, the Asda store on site was evacuated for a number of hours after a small fire broke out in the toilets. In February 2008, the inaugural Pancake Race took place to raise money for good causes and was run again in February 2009.

Car park problems

Shortly after the centre opened, concerns about the condition of the car park came to public attention when B&Q was forced to temporarily cease trading whilst the safety of the car park was determined. In May 2005 temporary safety netting was erected in the lower deck area of the east car park and around 1,000 parking spaces were closed to the public after concrete fell from the roof. By the 26 May 2005, these parking spaces had re-opened, although the netting remained in place.

On 1 December 2005, the carpark was again closed to the public following further safety concerns. This led to the temporary closure of all stores within the main site. The stores within the East and West Village were unaffected by this closure and remained open, although parking for these stores was limited. Whilst the centre was closed a free park and ride
Park and ride
Park and ride facilities are car parks with connections to public transport that allow commuters and other people wishing to travel into city centres to leave their vehicles and transfer to a bus, rail system , or carpool for the rest of their trip...

 scheme was introduced to take shoppers to alternative shops within Bournemouth town centre. Following repair work, the car parking spaces and stores in the main centre were re-opened to the public in a phased manner between 20 December 2005 and 13 February 2006.

Although the carpark was made safe with the insertion of props and the stores in the centre re-opened (and remain so), the longer term solution for rebuilding the carpark is still to be resolved.

Retailers

Castlepoint has 40 stores and restaurants built over 645000 ft2 of retail space. Since opening in 2003, several stores have ceased trading at the centre such as Principles
Principles (retailer)
Principles was a UK-based fashion retailer founded in 1984.The firm was launched by the Burton Group as an attempt to capitalise on the new modern trends in fashion; the mid-1980s was the boom era for the yuppie, a new upmarket cultural movement, and power dressing was a key trend: at the time,...

, Virgin Megastores, Suits Direct, All Sports, Barratts
Barratts
Barratts Priceless Ltd incorporates two long established high street brands in Barratts Shoes and Priceless Shoes in 2010. The Barratts shoes brand trades from 100 UK and Éire Stores and is committed to providing affordable fashion footwear...

, Choices Video and Lunn Poly
Lunn Poly
Lunn Poly was the largest chain of travel agents in the United Kingdom. The company originated from two successful travel agencies which had been established in 1890s; The Polytechnic Touring Association and Sir Henry Lunn Travel. Both firms were acquired in the 1950s by the British Eagle airline...

 (later Thomson). After the sale of Virgin Megastores in the United Kingdom, the stores were re-branded as Zavvi and after going into administration in 2009, had some of their sites sold to HMV, which currently operates the site at Castlepoint. The following list of retailers are trading at the centre as of May 2009:

  • Argos
    Argos (retailer)
    Argos is the largest general-goods retailer in the United Kingdom and Ireland with over 800 stores. It is unique amongst major retailers in the UK in that it is a catalogue merchant...

  • Asda
    Asda
    Asda Stores Ltd is a British supermarket chain which retails food, clothing, general merchandise, toys and financial services. It also has a mobile telephone network, , Asda Mobile...

  • B&Q
    B&Q
    B&Q plc is a multinational DIY and home improvement retailer headquartered in Eastleigh, United Kingdom. It was founded in 1969 and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Kingfisher plc, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange....

     Warehouse
  • Barclays
  • Bathstore
    Bathstore
    Bathstore.com Ltd., trading as Bathstore is a specialist bathroom retailer and is the largest in the United Kingdom. Bathstore was originally started in the early 1990s by Patrick Riley and Nico de Beer, with the idea to bring quality design led bathrooms into a wider retail arena...

  • Alliance Boots
    Alliance Boots
    Alliance Boots GmbH is a leading international, pharmacy-led health and beauty group. It has two core business activities - pharmacy-led health and beauty retailing, and pharmaceutical wholesaling and distribution - and has a presence in more than 25 countries...

     (Boots)
  • Burton
  • C&J Clark
    C&J Clark
    C. and J. Clark International Ltd, trading as Clarks, is a British, international shoe manufacturer and retailer based in Street, Somerset, England...

     (Clarks)
  • Clinton Cards
    Clinton Cards
    Clinton Cards is a chain of stores in the UK founded in 1968 by Don Lewin. Mostly selling greeting cards, as the name suggests, the chain claims to be "the largest specialist retailer of greetings cards, plush merchandise and related products in the UK with over 700 shops." They used to be...

  • Dorothy Perkins
    Dorothy Perkins
    Dorothy Perkins, whose trading name was inspired by a rambler rose of the same name, is a large British women's clothing retailer, active mostly in the United Kingdom.- History :...



  • Evans
  • Frankie & Benny's
    Frankie & Benny's
    Frankie & Benny's is a chain of Italian-American restaurants in the UK with numerous outlets nationwide run by The Restaurant Group plc. Its first location was Leicester in 1995 but now the chain has over 150 locations across the UK and also abroad, and smaller branches called "Little...

  • Game
    GAME (retailer)
    The Game Group plc is a British video games retail company. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap Index....

  • Gap
    Gap (clothing retailer)
    The Gap, Inc. is an American clothing and accessories retailer based in San Francisco, California, and founded in 1969 by Donald G. Fisher and Doris F. Fisher. The company has five primary brands: the namesake Gap banner, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Piperlime and Athleta. As of September 2008,...

  • H&M
    H&M
    H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB is a Swedish retail-clothing company, known for its fast-fashion clothing offerings for women, men, teenagers and children....

  • HMV
    HMV
    His Master's Voice is a trademark in the music business, and for many years was the name of a large record label. The name was coined in 1899 as the title of a painting of the dog Nipper listening to a wind-up gramophone...

  • JD Sports
    JD Sports
    JD Sports Fashion plc, more commonly known as just JD, is a sports-fashion retail company based in Bury, Greater Manchester, England with shops throughout the United Kingdom and with one in Ireland...

  • Jessops
  • Lakeland
  • Marks and Spencer
  • Miss Selfridge
    Miss Selfridge
    Miss Selfridge is a nationwide UK high street store which began as the young fashion section of Selfridges department store in London in 1966. Miss Selfridge got its name when Charles Clore, the owner of Selfridges at the time, saw a window display in the Bonwit Teller store in New York which...

  • Monsoon Stores Ltd
    Monsoon Stores Ltd
    Monsoon Accessorize is a design-led retailer based in London operating two international retail clothing chains - Monsoon and Accessorize.- History :...

     and Accessorize


  • Nandos
  • Natwest
  • New Look
    New Look (store)
    New Look is a British global fashion retailer with a chain of high street shops in Britain, Belgium, France, The Netherlands, Republic of Ireland, Malta, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.-History:...

  • Next
  • Orange UK
    Orange UK
    Orange is a mobile network operator and internet service provider in the United Kingdom, which launched in 1994. It was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but was purchased by France Télécom in 2000, which then adopted the Orange brand for all its other mobile communications activities...

  • River Island
    River Island
    River Island is one of Britain's best known high street fashion brands and can be found in most cities across the UK. The brand also has stores in Singapore, Turkey, Poland, Ireland, the Netherlands, and the Middle East.-History:...

  • Robert Dyas
    Robert Dyas
    Robert Dyas is a large UK retailer founded London 1872. The stores provide ranges of house wares, small electrical appliances, gardening products, kitchen wares, DIY, and consumer electronics throughout 98 stores, mainly in Greater London and South East England.-History :Robert Dyas emigrated from...

  • Sainsbury's
  • Sports Direct
    Sports Direct
    Sports Direct International plc is a British retailing group. Founded in 1982 by former county squash coach Mike Ashley, the company is now the UK's largest sporting retailer through a number of retail subsidiaries and sports equipment brands. Although now a publicly traded company on the London...

  • The Carphone Warehouse
    The Carphone Warehouse
    Carphone Warehouse Group PLC , known as The Carphone Warehouse, is Europe's largest independent mobile phone retailer, with over 1,700 stores across Europe. It is based in the United Kingdom and is a 50% subsidiary of Best Buy...



  • Thorntons
    Thorntons
    Thorntons is a UK chocolate company established by Joseph William Thornton in 1911. Thorntons today is a £180 million turnover company with nearly 400 shops and cafes and around 200 franchises together with internet, mail order and commercial services...

  • Topshop
    Topshop
    Topshop is a British clothes retailer with shops in over 20 countries and online operations in a number of its markets. Its sales come primarily from women's clothing and fashion accessories...

     and Topman
    Topman
    TOPMAN is the stand-alone fashion business counterpart of Topshop that caters exclusively to men’s clothing. A part of the Arcadia Group, which also owns Burton, Miss Selfridge, Wallis, Evans, British Home Stores and Dorothy Perkins, Topman has a chain of high-street men's clothing stores located...

  • 3 Store
  • TK Maxx
  • WHSmith
  • Wallis
    Wallis (retailer)
    Wallis is a British women's clothing retailer. The brand operates from 134 stores and 126 concessions across the UK and Republic of Ireland. Wallis is a subsidiary of the Arcadia Group and one of the many companies under ownership of Philip Green, a British retailing icon.-History:The first store...

  • Waterstones

The centre has numerous places to eat and drink including Frankie & Benny's and Nando's in the East Village and in the main centre Costa Coffee (in WHSmith), Caffe Nero (in Waterstones), McDonald's (in Asda), Thorntons Cafe, Cafe Revive (in Marks&Spencer), Sainsbury's cafe and Bar 39.

Transport

The car park is free to use, has space for 3,000 cars over two levels and is monitored by 109 digital CCTV cameras. It is served regularly by Transdev Yellow Buses
Transdev Yellow Buses
Yellow Buses is a bus operator based in Bournemouth, on the south coast of England, owned by the RATP Group, a company owned by the government of France. Although most routes are restricted to the Bournemouth local authority area, an increasing number are expanding into the adjacent areas of...

 and Wilts & Dorset
Wilts & Dorset
Wilts & Dorset is a bus company in England covering Poole, Bournemouth, East Dorset, South Wiltshire and West Hampshire. Its local headquarters is in Poole, but it is owned by the Go-Ahead Group, a major UK transport group....

 More bus services.

Awards

  • 2005 Purple Apple Marketing Award for its Think Big! campaign.
  • 2007 Safer Business Award.

Celebrity Visitors

March 2004 - Jacqueline Wilson
Jacqueline Wilson
Dame Jacqueline Wilson, DBE, FRSL is an award-winning English author, known for her vast and diverse work in children's literature. Her novels have been adapted numerous times for television, and commonly deal with such challenging themes as adoption, divorce and mental illness...



August 2009 - Katie Price (aka Jordan)

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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