Still the best place under the sun

Property Week – 1 October 2004

The autumn issue of Solstice Park News is hot off the presses, 18 months after Salisbury District Council granted consent to Amesbury Property Company to develop a mixed-use scheme at the park.

The developer caused uproar when it launched the 160 acre (65 ha) scheme off the A303 at Amesbury with a picture of a naked woman and advertising it as ‘the best place under the sun’. However, the letting programme in the ensuing months has been so successful that the newsletter – Solstice’s second – is now illustrated with well-known logos instead.

They include Pizza Hut, which has bought 0.78 acres (0.3 ha) for a restaurant; bp, which will lease a petrol station on the site to be developed by Margram; and Whitbread, which has bought land for a Brewers Fayre pub and 149 bedroom business hotel.

Abbey Manor had also bought land from Solstice and will develop the Beacon Centre – a group of speculative industrial units of between 2,000 sq ft (185 sq m) and 20,000 sq ft (1,860 sq m).

Such development-related achievements reported in the newsletter mean that the naked woman has disappeared. She is replaced by two skydivers. The slogan remains the same.