The attendance of the fashion-minded shopper is sought as Straiton Retail Park’s latest clothes shop prepares to open it’s doors.

Arcadia’s out of town brand ‘Outfit’ is the latest retailer to join Midlothian’s largest shopping destination. The shop, which offers a slimmed down offering from Arcadia’s High Street brands, will span 11,000 sq.ft and offer both womens and menswear.

For the ladies, Outfit will offer clothes from Topshop, Miss Selfridge, Dorothy Perkins, Oasis, Warehouse and Wallis, whilst men will be able to enjoy products from Topman and Burtons. A dedicated footwear section will provide shoes for both sexes

Kevin Keigher, Asset and Development Manager at The Peel Group commented:

We are extremely delighted to add Outfit to the already strong line-up of stores at Straiton Retail Park. Outfit offers yet another great reason for shoppers to visit the Retail Park. We are looking forward to working closely with Outfit to deliver a fantastic shopping experience to our customers both now and in the future.

The store will also participate in Arcadia’s Collect from Store service, allowing customers to collect orders for free from any of their brands.

Outfit Straiton will open at 9am on Thursday 10 September, with the first fifty customers receiving a £10 gift card. There’ll be further gift card giveaways, alongside music from DJs, and the opportunity to get your nails touched up at the Topshop Nail Bar.

Exterior works are complete on new Nando’s restaurant © Penicuik Cuckoo

Meanwhile, works on the new Nando’s restaurant at the park are nearing completion. The unit, neighbouring Frankie & Benny’s, is complete externally and the interior design works are now underway. An announcement about the opening date is imminent; it is expected to be within the next two months.

Though the latest retailer gains are welcome news to park owners Peel Group, they are preparing for the closure of anchor tenant Homebase, who will shortly lower their shutters for the final time. The DIY retailer will close on 12 September, or perhaps sooner should their stock be exhausted. It was the intention of the company to relocate the shop’s staff to other Home Retail Group stores in the area.

A planning application by Next PLC to alter the Homebase unit to form a new 72,000 sq.ft concept store has been approved and redevelopment works should commence before the year’s end. Additional car parking spaces will be added as well as a new Costa Coffee concession inside the shop.

Straiton underpass will be closed to the public from August 31 © Penicuik Cuckoo

To allow the redevelopment of land to the west of the lower tier of retail units, the Straiton underpass will be stopped up on August 31. The closure will see pedestrians use the overground pelican crossing instead. Peel Group said that they were unable to give any information regarding the redevelopment at this time. They hold planning permission to erect a department store or three large retail units on the vacant land, however this could be altered to add a sought after cinema.

Further down the A701, KFC and Burger King will open new drive-through eateries before the year’s end.

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