22 May EUX delivers European Flagship store for Polo Ralph Lauren at Cheshire Oaks in less than 6 months

Radically different designs, potential policy issues, traffic congestion, car parking problems and impact on local residents- one objection would have resulted in the timeline being missed.

Having a commercially minded team is crucial when you have limited time. McArthur Glen the Designer Outlet Operators were really clear in their brief.

Bearing in mind the potential problems – it could be viewed as outside policy, breaking the design code for the site, losing car parking spaces and impacting on traffic congestion, as well as upsetting all the nearby residential neighbours as staff car parking had to be created in front of their houses, with security lighting.

All this and the timetable unfortunately ran through July and August. The further complication was that the Local Planning Authority has a policy that if one single complaint was received it would be taken to Planning Committee and furthermore at any stage a councillor can ask for it to be referred to committee.

We used our established principles of engagement UX EUX to break down the components and manage the problems out. MAG had little available data but we knew that employees did live in the nearby residential areas. We also identified all the hotspots which would cause us problems and who might involve themselves in this space. This strategy demands you engage completely and is overwhelming if you don’t do it regularly. It’s very different to Community engagement activities and should not be confused with this area

The Polo Ralph Lauren new style store passed planning in the time frame that McArthur Glen wanted and was trading the following year.