A £35 million proposal has been unveiled to demolish Kendal's popular K Village and rebuild it on the same site, trebling the size of the shopping space and creating 300 jobs, reports Michaela Robinson-Tate.

In an ambitious scheme, a factory outlet developer hopes to buy the tourist honeypot and redevelop it, providing 500 parking spaces and increasing the number of shops from 12 to 42.

The new outlet would be one of the biggest buildings in the town.

By eliminating the need for shoppers to use an overflow car park off Parkside Road the developers claim they can solve traffic problems, and end the misery for residents of Lound Street and neighbouring roads, who have long complained that hordes of shoppers stream past their houses.

The plans, which have now been lodged with South Lakeland District Council, have been put forward by the Edinburgh-based Guinea Group, who say they have exchanged contracts with the current K Village owners, MEPC, to buy the factory outlet.

The scheme would mean the entire K Village site, with the exception of the war memorial area, would become a building, with the ground and first floors given over to car parking.

A third floor would consist of retail units, and shopping floor space would increase from the current 2,050 sq metres to 7,570 sq metres.

A restaurant will be located on the fourth and top level.

Guinea Group managing director John Drummond said visitors would park under cover and then make their way up to the shops.

By enhancing the riverside, Mr Drummond hopes to create a "natural walkway" to the town centre, and boost the southern part of Kendal, which he said has not seen the same level of development as the other end of town.

Mr Drummond said they had spent a lot of time with planners to come up with a "medieval wall" design for the elevation along Lound Road, featuring stone buttresses and other improvements.

The plans would also include a much larger heritage area for the display of K Shoes memorabilia, including items returned as part of the Gazette's Hand Back Our Heritage Campaign.

The company also plans to provide a regular bus service for the outlet.

The Guinea Group's purchase of the site is dependent on the scheme getting the go-ahead.

"It's not pie in the sky," Mr Drummond said.

"Our factory outlet portfolio is in excess of £150 million and we are fairly serious about what we do.

"If we are going into an area and making a considerable investment for a long number of years we only do it if I'm convinced we can come up a good operating answer, with the right scheme, and in the right way for a town.

"K Village has been around for a long time, it's got provenance, it's got history, and it's a known thing."

He said the current parking problems put off a lot of customers.

Under the Guinea Group plans, the overflow car park would only be used for coach parking, once shoppers had been dropped off at K Village.

The building work would be done in phases, so the vast majority of the site could continue trading.

Work, which would take 12 to 14 months, could start next January.

SLDC development control manager Peter Ridgway said although the proposed building was much bigger than the current K Village, it was not as tall.

It would improve Kendal as a retail destination, he said, but focus on factory outlet shopping, not necessarily in competition with the town centre.

"I'm quite excited by the additional attractions that this will provide for Kendal.

"It solves a lot of difficult problems for existing residents in quite an imaginative fashion and it potentially improves dramatically the visual impact of the site from across the river.

"I daresay there will be all sorts of local concerns that will be raised but we have certainly not suggested to the developer that it's a complete impossibility."

The Guinea Group is a factory outlet developer and operator with outlets in Clacton-on-Sea in Essex, Loch Lomond, Aldershot and a new operation north of Belfast.

They claim to be the third biggest operator of their kind in the UK.

Coun Philip Ball, who represents the area on Kendal town and South Lakeland district councils, welcomed the scheme in principle, and said it could help the regeneration of Kirkland.

Lound Street resident George Wells said if the overflow car park was no longer needed it would end the "nightmare" of pedestrians pouring through their cul-de-sac, and prevent a traffic hazard caused by shoppers crossing busy Lound Road.

K Village is currently home to shops including K Shoes, Cotton Traders, Denby, Crabtree and Evelyn and the National Trust, and employs 166 people.

n Comment, P12