'˜Flexible' use sought for Chichester's former Argos store

Parkview Homes wants the 365sqm ground floor use to be extended from retail to include the possibility of professional services (A2) or food and drink (A3).

Currently also for retail, the first floor use would include entertainment and leisure purposes (D2), such as a gym, ‘public’ use (D1), which includes medical use, or B1, which includes offices.

Documents supporting the application state Parkview Homes was seeking ‘a flexible consent so that a tenant falling within any of the proposed use classes could move into the ground or first floor’.

“The applicant suggests that on occupation, the flexibility falls away and the use of the occupying tenant is ‘locked in’. The council reserve the right to make forthcoming permission conditional on this basis,” they said.

“The proposed flexible change of use at the site is to allow for the building to be occupied by a range of tenants thereby ensuring the building does not remain vacant.”

Argos now operates from the Sainsbury’s branch at Westhampnett Road, Chichester.