A Co-Op that has sat closed for almost two years could be converted back into three individual shops, plans submitted to Bracknell Forest Council suggest.

The Co-op at Oakmede Place in Binfield closed in May 2022. At the time it was a single, large unit that also contained a post office, but had previously been three individual shop units.

Now the shop’s owner, Southern Co-Operative, has applied for permission to revert it back to that state. A planning  statement by Primer Olds surveyors said the changes will be ‘simply reinstatement to a former condition'.

These include blocking up openings made when the three units were converted into one, and re-opening blocked up and fixed rear doors. No changes are proposed to the rear.

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The Oakmede Place Co-Op has a complex history. It had previously been a Spar, also containing a Post Office, when the Co-Operative group took it over in 2015. After a campaign, the Co-Operative Group confirmed the Post Office would stay on site.

But the move-in coincided with plans to open another Co-op around the corner on Forest Road, run by a completely separate company Southern Co-operative.

The Oakmede Place Co-Op then closed in April 2017, only to reopen again later that year now also owned by Southern Co-Operative. It closed for a second time in May 2022.

Southern Co-Operative’s plans do not say what businesses might occupy the three re-divided units.