THE owner of Motherwell Shopping Centre has hailed the arrival of a drive-through KFC as a key development in its aim to attract evening footfall to the destination.
Chester Properties said the £1.3 million investment by the fast food operator, which will employ 50 staff at the site, will bring a sea-change in shopping habits.
The development comes after data showed footfall at the centre was up 20 per cent in the six months from January to July, compared to the same period last year, in contrast to a flat performance across Scotland as a whole on average. The data is compiled for North Lanarkshire Council by PFM Footfall Intelligence.
Chester director William Gear said: "Having a new KFC will give us a double boost. It will be a great facility in its own right, and we hope it will act as springboard to extend trading and other activities into the evening.
"We've welcomed eight new traders, including a fishmonger and our first ever e-Cig[arette] outlet, already this year and our occupancy levels are well over 90 per cent."
The new KFC restaurant, which will trade until 11pm, is not due to open until Easter.
Neil Armour Smith, the company's senior property acquisition manager, said: "We are delighted to be opening in Motherwell and believe KFC will be a positive addition to the local area.
"The Shopping Centre is really buzzing, mainly because shoppers see it as delivering great value.
"The new store will create 50 jobs with real career paths and accredited training at every stage, including apprenticeships. A majority of these will be part-time, which will bring real choice and flexibility to the local labour market."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article