The bulldozers are still on site and Peter and Joseph Hockenhull are standing in hard hats and hi-vis jackets up to their ankles in mud. But the father and son business partners are optimistic that The Croft, now undergoing its second redevelopment under their ownership, is on track to open on November 7.
“We’ve got great faith in Midas and AKN who are behind the build. They work incredibly well together,” enthuses Peter, who is spending close to £2 million to future-proof the Leicester site. It is about £250,000 more than he had originally hoped when starting the work in June. But it has been a complicated process, with Blaby District Council lobbing them multiple blindsiders along the way.
During the 11 months’ wait to get planning permission, it had made requests for bat boxes, hedging around the perimeter, and a green roof on the Spar shop. Also, the council demanded a sound-proofing report for the site, despite being outside the conurbation on the busy B4114 road to Coventry, with no houses near enough to hear the construction work let alone the site when it opens.
“You couldn’t make it up,” says Peter, we are in the middle of nowhere. Nobody could hear anything taking place on the site, and with fields all around us I’d question the need for more greenery with a living roof. Surely it would have been far more important to have solar panels on the building instead, which is what we were hoping for.”
But most trickily the council wanted the Hockenhulls to install electric vehicle charging, despite the site having no access to extra grid capacity to run the equipment. It was a tick box exercise no doubt to meet its own environmental targets, says Peter, while giving little benefit to largely affluent locals most likely to charge at home.
Peter suspects that a company-owned Shell/Waitrose forecourt five minutes away, which introduced three chargepoints in an upgrade of the site, beat him to it in terms of getting more power to The Croft. But he found a solution with a two hose 120kW charger, which has its own battery which is powered by the shop, rather than directly from the grid.
However, Peter never wanted to skimp on this knockdown rebuild of the BP site, which he originally purchased 26 years ago and then sold to EG Group 12 years later. Four years ago he bought the site back, with a vision to make it a “new age destination forecourt”.
He wanted to recreate the “wow factor” achieved at his award-winning The Stage petrol filling station, also in the East Midlands city, and around 20 minutes drive away. The Croft will also take the tear-drop shape canopy which its sister site, the 2020 Forecourt Trader of the Year winner, has become known for.
Peter says that he has also been inspired by the new-to-industry EG On The Move forecourts with his shop design, although on a much smaller scale, a nod to what Zuber Issa has achieved, with a modern glazed front, the building’s exterior wrapped in slate and buff coloured cedar effect panels, and the addition of a foodservice concession.
BP Croft Hill’s redeveloped shop will be at least five times bigger than the original ‘kiosk’. Inside, to the left of the entrance, will be a Subway complete with seating for up to 40 customers. There will be a Starbucks coffee machine, and a greater focus on meals for tonight, top up shopping and fresh chilled food.
Previously the shop turned over £15,000 a week, which Peter says is down to his “exceptionally dedicated” team punching well above what you would expect such a small shop to have achieved. He hopes this will increase to upwards of £30,000 when the site re-opens.
As before, it will be a 24-hour operation, something that Peter says is as much about preventing crime as increasing turnover. Like the three other forecourts he operates, alongside two other sites he leases out, there will be two pay at pump nozzles. This is complete with a voice recording of Peter explaining to customers how to use the self-service option.
On the forecourt, behind the shop, there will be two jet washes, alongside the two EV charging bays, and parking for 12 vehicles. At the front will be six pumps, and a new 100,000 litre tank has been installed, alongside an existing 50,000 litre tank which was not replaced. The site has increased from three to four fuel grades, with the addition of Ultimate diesel. It also has two nozzles of AdBlue on pump – an area of growth for the business.
Peter hopes that all of the changes will increase fuel volume at The Croft from 3.5 million litres per annum to 5mpla. It is a compact site and there have been challenges of trying to “get a quart into a pint glass”, says Peter.
How effectively this has been done remains to be seen at the grand opening – let’s hope – on November 7.
