This was our most ambitious investment at the time. We had been tenants under our own brand in part of the building since 1992 when it became the second branch of our estate agency. It was a mixed use three storey 1960s corner building with its own 12 space car park, in a prime part of High Road, Loughton adjacent to what was to become Marks and Spencer’s food hall. It offered 4 studio apartments on the third floor and a suite of offices on the second. On the Ground floor a furniture shop occupied the larger 2,000 sqft unit and our estate agency the small corner unit and some upstairs offices.
We were made aware around 2002 that the freehold was being marketed and took the huge decision to acquire. A number of purchasers were reluctant to commit at the time because one of the studio had been sold. However, we took the long view that it was good investment and managed to acquire the missing studio apartment with in a few months, thus securing the entire freehold.
Over the following 10 years we pursued numerous planning schemes all of which at successive Appeals eventually gave us incremental gains in the car park resulting in a final granted Planning permission for 12 apartment over 4 floors with a large ground floor commercial space. Part of the planning gain also allowed us to provide 2 new apartments on the roof space of the existing building at 165 High road Loughton. We decided that to develop the car park site ourselves was too ambitious, so opted to sell the site in 2018.
