The battle of the supermarkets in central Cambridge looks set to continue in the coming year (2012) with two of the market leaders going head-to-head at the city’s Leisure Park with confirmation by property consultancy Carter Jonas of the letting of 4,300 sq ft of space to Sainsbury’s.

Sainsbury’s has taken the unit available under the Travelodge hotel at the opposite side of the leisure complex to grocery rival Tesco which has had its store there for a number of years.

The letting was negotiated and secured by Carter Jonas partner, Will Mooney who, as a commercial agent, has had a close and enduring professional involvement with the Cambridge Leisure Park since it was developed from the city’s old cattle market site and opened for business in its new guise in 2003.

Will has represented Travelodge Hotels Ltd for the past ten years and has been instrumental in initiating site searches and bringing new sites forward for the company which include all three of its Cambridge sites – the first of which was at Cambridge Leisure Park.

During the past decade, Will Mooney has been involved in negotiating the lease of many of the restaurant, retail and leisure units at the Park and has been close to securing the lease of the particular unit which Sainsbury’s is now fitting out a number of times to several household brand names.

He explains: “The Leisure Park is a really interesting site.  It’s in a prime location in the city which has seen a lot of residential development of the surrounding area since 2003 and its range of uses – leisure, health and fitness, entertainment and retail – has made it an attractive proposition to a number of commercial users.

“The unit being occupied by Sainsbury’s has seen serious interest from mainstream take-away brands and pub chains who, for many reasons, could not secure the lease ultimately.”

The confirmation of the letting to Sainsbury’s by Carter Jonas comes on the back of the recent announcement by Travelodge Hotels Ltd of a strategy to align its hotel locations with those of the leading supermarkets. 

So far this year, the budget hotel chain has opened a site in London with Tesco, in Manchester with Morrisons and is co-developing sites with Waitrose in several of the London home counties.