Altrincham Retail Park Sold to US Investor Hines

Altrincham Retail Park has changed hands. The global investment manager Hines bought it on 1 September as one of three UK retail parks acquired in a single transaction, and says the Broadheath site is fully let.

Hines put the park at 228,000 square feet, making it comfortably the largest of the three. The buyer named the retailers trading there as Lidl, Boots, B&Q, Currys, B&M, Pets at Home and TK Maxx, and described the site as serving “one of the strongest catchments in North West England” (Hines press release, 1 September 2026).

Nothing about the shops themselves changes. This is a change of landlord, not of tenants.

What Hines bought

The three parks total about 438,000 square feet and were bought for the Hines European Core Fund. They are:

• Altrincham Retail Park, Manchester, 228,000 sq ft, let to Lidl, Boots, B&Q, Currys, B&M, Pets at Home and TK Maxx.
• Nugent Shopping Park, Orpington in Greater London, 139,000 sq ft, anchored by a full-line Marks & Spencer with a grocery food hall.
• Straiton Retail Park, Edinburgh, 71,000 sq ft, anchored by Home Bargains, The Food Warehouse and Dunelm.

Hines did not publish a price for any of the three.

Why a landlord wanted it

Hines was explicit about the reasoning, and it is worth reading if you shop there. The firm said UK retail parks now benefit from a “scarcity advantage”, with new development at historic lows and vacancy below 5%, which has given the format some of the strongest rental growth in retail over the past five years.

Alfonso Munk, global co-head of investment management at Hines, said: “Limited new supply, strong retailer demand, and attractive income characteristics create a combination that has been difficult to replicate elsewhere in the retail market.”

Ross Blair, head of Western Europe at Hines, said: “Success comes down to picking the right assets and executing well. We believe these retail parks combine strong fundamentals with clear opportunities to create value over time.”

Hines says it will run the parks through its UK platform, focusing on tenant engagement, operational performance and “the capture of rental growth opportunities over the holding period”. In plain terms, the new owner expects rents to rise.

Every shop at the Broadheath retail park, unit by unit

The park is on George Richards Way, Broadheath, Altrincham, WA14 5GR, about three quarters of a mile north of Altrincham town centre and reached off the A56 Manchester Road.

Nobody publishes a unit plan, so we built one from the Food Standards Agency’s register, which records every food business by its exact unit number. This is the position on the register as at 20 September 2026:

B&Q, Pets at Home, Sports Direct and Hobbycraft also trade on the park. They sell no food, so they are not on that register and carry no unit number there.

Two things fall out of it. Homesense and Cafe 89 appear on no published tenant list for the park, not the buyer’s and not the agent’s, yet both hold current food-business registrations at the site. And Currys and B&M are both recorded at Unit 10, which is a subdivided unit rather than an error.

Broadheath retail park opening hours and parking

There are no park-wide opening hours: each store sets its own, and two of the retailers publish theirs on their own store pages. As listed on 1 October 2026:

(B&M Altrincham; The Range Altrincham)

Sunday is the day to plan around. Large shops in England can open for only six hours on a Sunday, which is why both close at 4.30pm. Check any other store’s own page before a late trip.

Parking is free, for three hours. The Range lists “Free Parking for 3 hours” among its facilities at the park, along with disabled and parent and child bays. The park’s letting brochure on Completely Retail describes it as off the A56 Manchester Road, about three quarters of a mile north of the town centre.

The two published tenant lists do not match, and neither does the floor area

When Hines announced the purchase it named seven retailers: Lidl, Boots, B&Q, Currys, B&M, Pets at Home and TK Maxx. The park’s letting listing on Completely Retail, marketed by Park Place Retail and Savills Out of Town, names eleven: B&Q, Currys, Sports Direct, Hobbycraft, Pets at Home, The Range, Boots, B&M Bargains, McDonald’s, TK Maxx and KFC.

Each list carries names the other leaves out. Hines names Lidl and the letting listing does not; the letting listing names Sports Direct, Hobbycraft, The Range, McDonald’s and KFC, and Hines names none of them. A buyer’s press release is a sales document, not a directory, and it is the shorter of the two.

The floor area does not agree either. Hines puts the park at 228,000 sq ft. The letting listing puts it at 218,308 sq ft, a gap of nearly 10,000 sq ft, roughly the size of a mid-sized unit. Neither source says how it is measured, so treat the round 228,000 as the marketing figure and the 218,308 as the surveyed one.

What the planning record says about the site

The park sits on George Richards Way in Broadheath, postcode WA14 5GR, and Trafford Council’s register shows it has been quietly worked on for years rather than left alone.

• An electric vehicle charging hub in the car park was approved with conditions on 22 May 2024, application 113159/FUL/24 (Trafford planning register).
• The permission for Unit 1, now occupied by B&Q, was granted on appeal, reference APP/Q4245/W/21/3267048, and its conditions were discharged one by one through 2023 and 2024, covering everything from a travel plan to an invertebrate plan.
• B&Q obtained retrospective advertisement consent for its signs at Unit 1 in 2025, application 115639/ADV/25.

None of that is dramatic on its own. Taken together it is the picture of a fully occupied park that has kept being tidied up and re-let, which is exactly the sort of asset the new owner said it was looking for.

What it means for you: in the short term, nothing. The shops, the car park and the opening hours are unaffected by a change of ownership, and Hines has named every current tenant as staying. The thing worth watching is rent. A buyer that says out loud it is targeting rental growth on a fully let park is a buyer that will test what tenants will pay at renewal, and on retail parks that is what eventually decides which names stay. If you want to know who is trading in the town right now, our Altrincham business directory lists them, and we follow applications on the park and elsewhere in Altrincham planning news. For getting there, our guide to parking in Altrincham covers the town centre tariffs, and the roadworks and travel page has what is dug up this week.

Frequently asked questions

Where is the Broadheath retail park?

Altrincham Retail Park is on George Richards Way, Broadheath, Altrincham WA14 5GR, off the A56 Manchester Road and about three quarters of a mile north of the town centre.

What shops are on Altrincham Retail Park?

Lidl, Homesense, The Range, Boots, TK Maxx, Currys, B&M, B&Q, Pets at Home, Sports Direct and Hobbycraft, plus McDonald’s, KFC and Cafe 89. The table above gives the unit numbers where the food register records them.

Who owns Altrincham Retail Park?

Hines, the global investment manager, which bought it on 1 September 2026 for the Hines European Core Fund. It did not disclose the price.

Is parking free at Altrincham Retail Park?

Yes, for up to three hours, according to The Range’s store page for the park.

Sources

• Hines: Hines expands UK retail park strategy with three acquisitions, press release dated 1 September 2026, for the acquisition, the three assets and their floorspace, the tenant list at Altrincham, the fund, the market reasoning and both quotes.
• Food Standards Agency, ratings.food.gov.uk, searched on postcode WA14 5GR on 20 September 2026, for the unit numbers, occupiers, hygiene ratings and inspection dates.
• B&M Altrincham and The Range Altrincham store pages, checked 1 October 2026, for opening hours and the three-hour free parking.
• Completely Retail: Altrincham Retail Park for the letting agents, the eleven-name occupier list and the 218,308 sq ft floor area.
• Trafford Council planning register: 113159/FUL/24 for the electric vehicle charging hub approval of 22 May 2024 and the site address.
• Trafford Council planning register: 112407/CND/23 for the Unit 1 permission granted on appeal, reference APP/Q4245/W/21/3267048, and the discharge of its conditions.

Hines did not disclose the price paid for any of the three parks, and we have not published a figure we cannot source to the buyer or seller.