The Eastern Region development at Lowestoft was a design and build contract, the design being undertaken by the Laing Design subsidiary for Gateway Securities Ltd. The complex included six other small retail units, shown boarded up in this photograph as they are yet to be occupied. The main store is now a Co-op. Gateway supermarkets had been around since the 1960s but in 1990 they began to be rebranded as Somerfield and the parent company was renamed Somerfield Plc by 1994. Somerfield was taken over by the Co-operative Group in 2009 and in turn the Somerfield brand was phased out by 2011. The takeover made the Co-op the fifth largest supermarket in the country and came with an Office of Fair Trade Ruling that 133 of the Somerfield stores had to be sold, Morrisons bought many of these. This photograph appeared in the November 1987 issue of Team Spirit, the Laing company newsletter.
This image was catalogued as part of the Breaking New Ground Project in partnership with the John Laing Charitable Trust in 2019-20.
This is part of the Series: JLP01/10 John Laing Photographic Collection Colour Negatives and Transparencies; within the Collection: JLP01 John Laing Photographic Collection
© Historic England Archive. John Laing Photographic Collection
Late 20th Century Supermarket, People Posed, Trade And Commerce
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