Furniture store to occupy Knutsford Conservative Club

The Tatton Estate has signed homewares retailer, OKA, to open a store in the Old Conservative Club in Knutsford. Local MP, Chancellor George Osborne, has vacated the building to move his surgery across the road in Windsor Way to another Tatton Estate property.

OKA has 12 shops across the UK alongside a mail order, online and trade channels. OKA is due to open in Knutsford in the spring.

The retailer signed a 10-year lease for 8,000 sq ft across basement, first and second floors.

Henry Brooks, managing director of Tatton Estate Management, said: “The OKA brand will be a perfect addition for Knutsford, offering a range of quintessentially British luxury furniture and accessories.

“2015 was a phenomenal year for TEM. In addition to securing new tenants for the Town Hall, with an investment of over £2m, and the Conservative Club, we were also appointed to manage additional assets with a value of over £10m. We have an exciting pipeline for 2016 and we are also delighted to announce our new utilities division which marks a new chapter for our growing business.”

Brooks said TEM’s in-house architectural and planning team secured flexible change of use for the Conservative Club building which enabled strip-out and repair works to take place in tandem with securing the letting.  The building, created for Lord Egerton in the 19th century, was extended in the 20th century and includes some of the Heath’s former racecourse grandstand. The bowling club will remain in situ as it has for a century.