WORK looks to have started to relocate a furniture store on a city business park.

Furniture chain Bensons for Beds is set to make the short move from Worcester’s Blackpole Retail Park to the neighbouring Edgar Retail Park according to a new planning application.

The latest pictures show work is currently taking place at the retail park and a proposal submitted to Worcester City Council has asked for permission to put up fresh purple Bensons for Beds signs to the front and rear of the empty former Maplin store.

The unit was previously home to the electronics store before it closed in 2018 after the company went into administration.

Bensons for Beds already has a store in the neighbouring Blackpole Retail Park, off Blackpole Road, which it shared with parent furniture store Harveys until its closure in 2020 when the company went into administration.

Bensons for Beds was saved at the last minute despite going into administration alongside Harveys.

The move by Bensons for Beds would mean a unit is left empty in Blackpole Retail Park for a potential new occupier.

Coffee chain Costa and bakery Greggs have been the latest additions to the city retail park with the two new stores opening at the end of last year.

The two popular chains, as well as a tanning salon, opened in a 397 square metre ‘pod’ next to the M&S Foodhall, which opened in 2019, and replaced 31 car parking spaces.

It is not the first time a store has switched between the two adjoining Worcester retail parks with expansion work at Next in 2019 leading to the move of autocentre Halfords to the Blackpole Retail Park to make way for a bigger clothing store to add to the company’s existing homeware and future store.

Work is also continuing to transform another former city furniture store at the one-time Worcester Bed Centre in City Walls Road which has been taken over by the Salvation Army.

McCarthy and Stone had revealed plans to redevelop the City Walls Road site into 57 assisted living apartments, but those proposals were eventually scrapped.