Site Sourcing and Acquisition
We search trunk-road corridors and service areas for plots and existing buildings that can support a catering unit, assess each against traffic data, access feasibility, planning history and utility capacity, and negotiate the purchase or lease. Owners of land already in hand can commission the same assessment as a standalone piece of work. We are equally willing to say that a site is unsuitable, which we do in writing with the reasons set out.
Planning and Consents
Preparation and management of planning applications for food use, drive-through layouts, signage and new or altered accesses, with acoustic, odour, drainage and transport assessments prepared in advance. We handle pre-application discussions, condition negotiation, discharge of conditions and any appeal. Where a highways consent is the critical path, we start it first and structure the land agreement so that the risk is not carried before it is resolved.
Development and Build Management
Design to our roadside catering specification, tendering, contractor appointment, project management through construction, and handover with full documentation, warranties and a maintenance manual. Typical delivery is fourteen to twenty weeks on a cleared site. We also convert existing buildings — filling station shops, former showrooms, farm buildings — where the structure and the access allow it, which is often faster and cheaper than a new build.
Letting and Lease Management
Marketing to our standing list of operators and to the wider market, tenant vetting including a review of their trading record, lease negotiation on our standard plain-language terms, and full management thereafter: rent collection, service charge administration, reviews, renewals, dilapidations and dispute resolution. Owners receive quarterly reporting with arrears, expenditure and lease event dates set out clearly.
Building and Estate Management
Planned and reactive maintenance across the fabric, services, extraction, grease systems, drainage, car parks, lighting and signage, delivered through contractors held under framework agreements. Statutory inspections, insurance coordination, energy certification and health and safety documentation are held centrally per property. Emergency response operates twenty-four hours, which for a unit trading until two in the morning is not an optional extra.
Investment and Advisory
Acquisition and management of let roadside units for private and institutional investors, including due diligence on the tenant's covenant and the building's condition, plus sale and leaseback structures for operators who want to release capital from a unit they own. Advisory work covers rent reviews, portfolio reviews, disposal strategies and honest appraisals of whether a particular site should be redeveloped, re-let or sold.
