Aberdeen businessman Neil Cordiner has unveiled ambitious plans to develop a “Harrods of the North”-style development on a 10-acre site at Fordel, ten miles south-east of Edinburgh off the A68 Edinburgh to Darlington road.
The heart of the £20m development — situated at the junction of the A68 Dalkeith bypass, which opened last September, and the A6124 Carberry road — would be a 60,000 sq ft countrywear store, similar to the House of Bruar near Blair Atholl.
The propose’e proposed for an adjacent site to the east of main A68 road.
The project is a joint venture between Cordiner’s company, Oakridge Property, and local landlord John Dalrymple, 14th Earl of Stair, 47, a cross-bench peer in the House of Lords, who owns the land.
Fordel project expected to create 100 jobs and boost tourism
An Oakridge Property spokesman said the proposed Fordel development would create 100 jobs and that it represented a “fantastic opportunity to boost Midlothian’s tourism potential.” He said that there was scope to include a publicly-funded visitor interpretation centre on the site.
He said the developers have approached Mark Birkbeck, owner of House of Bruar, which opened on the A9 near Blair Atholl in 1995, is seen as having revolutionised upmarket out-of-town retailing in Scotland, to assess his interest in leasing the retail and restaurant units on the site.
However Birkbeck, who says he receives dozens of such approaches each year, apparently has no desire to open a second House of Bruar. Other possible tenants include family business Brodie Countryfare, whose principal outlet is on the A96 near Nairn.
Scottish Natural Heritage has written to Midlothian Council expressing concern about the “potential landscape and visual impacts that may arise from the scale and nature of the proposed development.”
The proposed Fordel mall, presented to local residents as part of a planning consultation exercise in Cousland village hall by Glasgow-based chartered surveyors and planning consultants Graham & Sibbald last week, has been worked up over the past two to three years by Dalkeith-based Oakridge.
Oakridge is 100% owned by north-east recycling and property entrepreneur Cordiner, who is also the majority shareholder in Dalkeith-based housebuilder Macfarlane Homes.
Oakridge Properties has debts of £1.7m repayable within one year. In the year to March 2009 it had a turnover of £1m on which it made profits of £62,000.
This article was published in The Sunday Times on 30 August 2009