University of Essex wants to upgrade its Student Union Shop

Essex University has sent Colchester Council a planning application to extend its Student Union Shop.

If successful, the university plans to extend the shop into an “area currently used as ancillary university offices” whilst making alterations to its shopfront.

The SU Shop serves as a convenience shop, selling an assortment of goods, and provides “for the day-to-day needs of students and staff”.

Location - University of Essex (Image: Newsquest) It is open Monday to Friday, 7am to 1am, and from 9am to 1am on weekends.

According to the planning application, the shop is “very popular” but due to limited space, and “an awkward layout”, it gets overcrowded and “cannot offer the full ranges of products that it would wish to”.

The limitations imposed on the size and shape of the shop mean that the business has to limit the number of till points that can be provided.

Queues also lead to the “narrow aisles” being blocked, meaning displays in the store can’t be accessed easily by customers.

Customers also often have to join a queue “just to get to the product that they want” and then have to walk round the store again to reach the back of the till queue.

Crowd - students on campus (Image: Newsquest) The university wants to “enlarge the shop, so it can stock a greater range of goods”, and provide an enhanced “customer experience that involves less queuing”.

To do this, it is planned to extend the floor space by extending it into ancillary office accommodation to the rear of the store and the adjacent entrance.

This would increase floorspace from 145sq metres to 240sq metres and would mean the removal of six small offices and the entrance to the store would be moved.

The current entrance would be infilled with render, and new sliding doors would be installed.