Review of the Week
UP to 1,000 jobs are to be created in Barnsley after fashion retailer ASOS revealed plans to open a distribution centre in the town.
The £40m centre will have 360 permanent staff and up to 1,000 employees over its busiest periods when it will take on temporary workers.
The online retailer believes the opening of the 530,000 sq ft centre will help it to become a £1bn business within the next five years.
The business has no stores and has blossomed during the recession, with its ASOS Magazine having a circulation of 450,000.
The distribution centre is owned by proLogis.
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CAPITAL & Regional the property fund manager has announced details of a refinancing of its Mall Fund, which owns shopping centres throughout the UK.
In Yorkshire Capital & Regional operates The Mall in Barnsley through the fund. The 180,000 sq ft centre has tenants that include TK Maxx, Next and Primark.
The fund has issued £1bn of bonds which mature in April 2014 and is due to repay an inter-company loan for the same amount in April 2012.
Capital & Regional said it planned to push back these deadlines to 2017 and 2015 respectively.
It is also proposing mandatory amortisation to reduce the inter-company loan to £600m by 2014. Among other proposals is the injection of £155m of retained cash towards the loan and capital expenditure.
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DEVELOPER Towngate Homes has defied the difficult market conditions after securing £7m of housing sales at its luxury Broomfield Avenue residential scheme in Halifax.
Fourteen out of 16 of the detached homes and townhouses at Savile Park have either been sold or reserved with all interest secured prior to development.
The first four homes which were sold off-plan in phase one of the scheme are complete and in response to demand, Towngate Homes is progressing with the remainder of the scheme with the next phase due for completion in November.
The two acre site which Broomfield Avenue occupies is located within a conservation area overlooking Savile Park on the outskirts of Halifax town centre.
Richard Conroy, chief executive of Holmfirth-based Towngate Homes, said: “There has been much speculation within the housing industry as to the viability of luxury developments such as Broomfield Avenue within the current economic climate.”
