BIG brands are clamouring to set up shop in Chelmsford, with 37 different companies, including Ecco and Phase Eight, currently interested in opening stores in the city.
The brands feature on a list of retail, leisure and financial services firms that includes Warren Evans, JoJo Maman Bebe, L'Occitane, Rituals, Champneys Luxury Spa, and Farrow & Ball, and the new stores are expected to open within the next two years.
It is hoped that the additions will turn Chelmsford into a retail hub, potentially drawing visitors away from premier shopping destinations such as Westfield Stratford, Lakeside and Bluewater, and retain city shoppers.
The addition of new major brands to the city would be thanks in large part to the financial success of Chelmsford's current retailers, explained Chelmsford City Council cabinet member for planning and economic development Councillor, Neil Gulliver.
"Success breeds success. Most major brands in Chelmsford say the stores here are among the highest performing in the country for those companies.
"People don't just come to shop any more, so it is important that we have restaurants, cinemas and so on, so that people stay. It's day tourism.
"It seems that the major retailers like to cluster together, and it means a city centre can bring in the footfall and then the individual shops just have to worry about getting people to come through their doors."
The new brands were identified in the city council's 2014 Retail Capacity Study this month, which showed that the minimum amount of floor space required to house the retailers is 10,783 square metres.
However, the council said that there would be no need for new buildings to make room for the additional shops – instead suggesting some of them could make use of empty premises in the city centre, the number of which is higher than the national average.
Neil Jordan, senior planning officer for Chelmsford City Council, said: "It's safe to say with new brands and developments we are expecting an increase in footfall."
Many of the higher-end brands on the list may find a place in Aquila Holdings' Bond Street retail development, whose centrepiece is the highly-anticipated John Lewis store, which is expected to open in 2016.
"The city as a whole will benefit from new stores," said Aquila development consultant Neil Ridley, who said that at least one of the 37 brands, L'Occitane, had been confirmed in a unit within the retail development.
"At the moment the offering isn't big enough in terms of variety or quality, so people will go to regional shopping centres instead. But this development gives people a viable local alternative. The reasons all the brands are coming here is the strength of the indigenous people."
