Vast new ‘concept store’ for landmark Scottish shopping centre

The group owns Sports Direct, House of Fraser, and a collection of other brands such as GAME, Jack Wills, Sofa.com, Evans Cycle, USC, and Everlast. The new “next-generation” Frasers will feature a number of these brands.

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“The opening of the 70,000sq ft Frasers store next year will be a transformational moment for Overgate, for the city, and for the wider region, regenerating this landmark space with an exceptional retail experience synonymous with Frasers Group,” centre manager Malcolm Angus said. “We are very much advancing the vision and commencement of works at pace.”

In other news of expansion, the owner of a remote Scottish golf resort revealed plans to bring more golfers to “the end of the Earth” in Argyll.

Tommy Southworth, who took over his family’s golf development company five years ago from his father, told The Herald that the £100m project including the addition of a second links course will turn Machrihanish Dunes into a destination akin to Bandon Dunes in the US state of Oregon, the rather unlikely home of some of the world’s best golf courses. 

Boston-based Southworth has been granted planning permission for the expansion, with work on the new course expected to begin next year. The company is currently in discussions with potential partners to provide capital and hospitality expertise, and hopes to make an announcement on this by March.

Southworth has owned and operated Machrihanish Dunes since the course first opened in 2009 on a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). Designed by David McLay Kidd – the man responsible for the legendary courses at Bandon – Machrihanish Dunes has been dubbed “one of the most natural golf courses in the world” and was the first GEO-certified golf course in the UK.

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“But one of the downsides of Machrihanish is it’s hard to get to,” Mr Southworth said. “It’s sort of at the end of the Earth, and that’s its greatest blessing and its greatest curse.

“It’s a blessing in that that’s what creates this special experience, and so for years we’ve been talking about expanding and making Machrihanish a longer-term draw. We’ve seen this model work across a lot of golfing developments over the course of the last 10 years or so across the world.”

Back in the central belt, contract electronics manufacturer CB Technology of Livingston announced that it has been acquired by Northern Irish rival Elite Electronic Systems for an undisclosed sum.

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The combined business will have an annual turnover of more than £50 million, creating one of the largest such operators in the UK. The deal is expected to be the first in a series under Elite’s “buy-and-build” strategy backed by its main shareholder, private equity group Lonsdale Capital Partners.

Founded in 1999, CB Technology employs 80 people providing electronics capable of operating in the harshest environments of extreme pressure and temperature. Customers of the company, which generated revenues of £16m in the year to March 2023, include clients spanning the energy, industrial, medical, communications and instrumentation sectors.

And EM Dairies of Bellshill unveiled plans to expand its milk round after just four months in operation.

The business, set up by former pub landlord Julian Terriaca, focuses on the needs of small businesses such as cafes, coffee shops, nurseries and retailers. Mr Terriaca has attributed his success in securing an order book worth £5m annually to the fact that the B2B sector has been “rather neglected” by the dairy industry.