Straiton Retail Park, Loanhead: Shops, Parking, Directions and Opening Times

Peel's flagship Scottish retail park sits directly on the A720 Edinburgh City Bypass, with Next, Marks and Spencer, Nike, Lidl and Matalan among 26 tenants and 1,073 free spaces. But "Straiton" is at least five separately-owned things sharing one postcode, and almost nothing you read online keeps them apart. IKEA and Costco are neighbours, not tenants. The park's own website renders a blank page. And the park & ride up the road lost its buses in September 2025.

Last checked 9 September 2026 · Opening times and store lists change — check with the centre before travelling.

Straiton Retail Park sits on the south side of the A720 Edinburgh City Bypass at Loanhead, just inside Midlothian and just outside Edinburgh. It is Peel Retail Parks' flagship Scottish asset, it holds 26 tenants on the operator's own schedule, and it has 1,073 free spaces. Those are the easy facts. Everything else needs untangling first.

"Straiton" is not one retail park. It is at least five separately-owned things sharing a postcode sector and a set of road signs, and every directory and map listing we checked blends them into one. Peel's park is the subject of this page; IKEA, Costco, Asda and Sainsbury's are neighbours, as Peel's own page says in as many words. There is a second, older, much smaller retail park using the same name, and in April 2025 a third landlord got permission to build behind the Asda. We untangle it below.

The park's own web address is a dead end. straitonretailpark.co.uk resolves, is indexed by Google, and serves a completely empty page — a title reading "Welcome", a viewport tag, and nothing in the body. We fetched the homepage, the contact page and a news article and got the same blank shell every time; the news URLs Google still lists return 404. The site that works is Peel's, at peelretailparks.co.uk/straiton — a leasing document written for retailers, so it carries a full tenancy schedule and no opening hours at all.

What follows draws on Peel's own scheme page and dated news posts, a Savills brochure, Midlothian Council's retail technical note, the 2025 planning coverage, the archive of a community newspaper that has since stopped publishing, Companies House, and the retailers' own store pages. Where sources disagree — and here they disagree about almost every number — we print both and say who published each.

The continued investment in Straiton Retail Park has enabled us to deliver three exceptional additions to the already-strong tenant mix.

The essentials

Opening times

This is the weakest part of the record on Straiton, and we would rather show you the hole than paper over it. Peel publishes no opening hours for this park anywhere: its scheme page lists every tenant and every unit size and never says what time the place opens, and the consumer site that ought to carry them serves an empty page. There may genuinely be no park-wide set — an open park has no shared roof to unlock.

The Next hours are the reliable ones, from Next's own store page checked on 9 September 2026. Its 9pm weekday close is later than the directory's 8pm — another reason not to trust the directory. Next also flags a quirk: on Sundays and bank holidays the first thirty minutes are browsing only.

The Marks and Spencer row is dated December 2020 — those were the hours reported when the store opened, and nobody has published a current set. Nobody publishes Christmas, New Year or Scottish public-holiday hours for Straiton at all, and there is no shopper number to ring. If a specific store decides your trip, that retailer's own store finder is the only source we would rely on.

Getting there

By road

Use EH20 9PW, and use the bypass. There is no motorway junction number on this page because Peel does not publish one. Its entire road guidance, verbatim, is that the park is "situated directly on the A720 City of Edinburgh Bypass", and the Savills brochure prints "SAT NAV EH20 9PW". For a site on the bypass that is fair enough — the A720 is what you follow.

For the lower terrace and the fast chargers, EH20 9QY is more precise. For IKEA or Costco you want Costkea Way, EH20 9BY — a different road, owner and car park.

Parking

1,073 spaces and free. The space count is one of the few figures at Straiton everybody agrees on: Peel's scheme page, the Savills brochure and Parkopedia all give 1,073.

The time limit is disputed and Peel publishes nothing. Parkopedia, crowd-sourced, says free for two hours, customers only, and warns that "ANPR operates in some areas which includes time restrictions". A parking guide site puts it at about three hours while noting its own figures are "a guide only — always read the sign on arrival". Do exactly that. No ANPR contractor is named by anybody, so we cannot say who would issue a charge; the same guide site puts typical retail-park charges at £60 to £100, reduced to around £60 within fourteen days.

Parkopedia records disabled bays and no height restriction — one crowd-sourced source, not the operator, so judge a van or a roof box on arrival.

Electric vehicles

One area where Straiton is properly documented. evyve runs two sites inside the park: five chargers up to 50kW on the upper terrace (EH20 9PW), CHAdeMO, CCS and Type 2, and two up to 75kW on the lower terrace (EH20 9QY), CHAdeMO and CCS. On 9 September 2026 the tariff was 69p/kWh by app on weekdays and 48p at weekends, 79p and 55p contactless — a split worth planning around. Zapmap also lists chargers at IKEA Edinburgh and at the park & ride, neither in this park.

By bus

Better than you would expect for an out-of-town park. The stops are "Straiton, at Retail Park" and its opposite number, served by Lothian Buses X33, 37 and 37A, the N37 night bus between Penicuik and Silverknowes, and Midlothian Council's 800 from Pathhead to Penicuik. Across the wider Straiton area there are thirteen stops and eleven services in all — 1, 3, X33, 37, 37A, N37, X37, 47, 47B, X62 and 800. The 37 is the through service that stops at the park.

The park & ride no longer has buses

Almost nothing online reflects this. Straiton Park & Ride, on Straiton Road at EH20 9NP off the A701 south of the bypass junction, still exists and its car park is still free and open around the clock. But Lothian Buses withdrew its services on 7 September 2025, citing low usage, and the building is closed. The X37, 47 and 47B used to call there; alternative stops remain on the A701. If you were planning to leave the car and bus into Edinburgh, that ended a year ago.

By train

There is none. No railway station serves Straiton, and no source names a nearest station or a walking distance to one. Loanhead's own station closed to passengers long before this park existed.

Taxis, coaches and bikes

Nothing published by anybody — which does not prove none exists, only that nobody says so.

The shops

Peel's own tenancy schedule listed 26 tenants when we counted it on 9 September 2026 — eighteen on the park and eight on The Terrace. Peel gives a floor area for each, so the sizes below are the operator's own.

The anchors

Next at 40,474 sq ft is the biggest thing here and the most argued-about (below). Marks and Spencer, Matalan and B&M Bargains are each put at 20,000 sq ft, Lidl takes 18,300 on the lower terrace and Nike 15,071.

The rest of the park

Sports Direct (10,174 sq ft), TK Maxx (10,147), Boots (10,037), Pets at Home (10,009), and Carpetright, Halfords and Sofology at 10,000 apiece; then Natuzzi (8,074), Tapi (7,533) and SCS (7,357). Eating: Nando's (3,600), Tony Macaroni (3,189), Costa (1,800). Peel's page prints TK Maxx as "10,1474 sq ft", plainly a typing slip.

The Terrace

The newer parade, completed February 2021: Bensons for Beds (7,772 sq ft), LOAF (6,818), Archers (4,000), The Works (3,000), Trespass (2,077), and Card Factory, Greggs and Starbucks at 1,500 each.

How big is the Next, really?

Three numbers are on the record for one store and nothing reconciles them: 80,000 sq ft (CoStar, 12 February 2016, reporting the prelet, and again in the trade coverage of the opening that September), 75,611 sq ft with 52,014 sq ft of sales space (The Penicuik Cuckoo, 16 February 2016), and 40,474 sq ft on Peel's current schedule.

The store was built into the former Homebase building with a new second floor that doubled the unit, and opened over the weekend of 30 and 31 July 2016 with 110 jobs, billed as the largest Next in Scotland. It carried Costa (the park's second), Paperchase and Beaverbrooks' first ever UK concession, and footfall rose 11.6% week on week. Whether the 40,474 sq ft reflects a later downsizing or simply a different way of counting a two-floor unit, nobody publishes.

What arrived, with dates

• 10 May 2014 — Sofaworks, after a 35-week build; 30,000 sq ft per The Penicuik Cuckoo, 17,000 over two floors per Furniture News.
• 2015 — Arcadia's Outfit, 10,000 sq ft on ten years, carrying Topshop, Topman, Dorothy Perkins and Burton; Nando's, 3,600 sq ft on fifteen; a mezzanine and vet practice for Pets at Home. 30–31 July 2016 — Next opens.
• 2 December 2020 — Marks and Spencer, after consent on 19 June 2020 to relocate and expand by 10,000 sq ft. Billed as Scotland's largest M&S Food at 15,000 sq ft; Peel's schedule says 20,000. Store manager at opening: Thomas Tierney.
• February 2021 — Starbucks, takeaway only at first, the first tenant on the new Terrace; Archers Sleepcentre on 12 April; The Works, Card Factory and Greggs in the week of 26 April; Tony Macaroni in May, in the former Frankie & Benny's unit.
• 8 April 2022 — Lidl, on the lower terrace, in space previously held by M&S and Boots.
• 14 February 2023 — LOAF opens its "Edinburgh Shack", its first store in Scotland, announced the previous 12 January.

What has gone — and why we cannot date any of it

Neither Peel nor anyone else announces closures at Straiton. Comparing names in dated reporting against Peel's current schedule, these are absent today: Homebase (its building became the Next), Frankie & Benny's (its unit became Tony Macaroni), Sofaworks, Argos, Laura Ashley, Harveys, Carphone Warehouse, and the whole Outfit line-up of Topshop, Topman, Dorothy Perkins and Burton.

Not one of those departures has a date from any source, and several of those brands vanished from every high street in Britain rather than from this park — Arcadia collapsed nationally in 2020 and 2021. All the comparison proves is that a name was reported here once and is not on the operator's list now.

Useful to know

Which units belong to which owner — read this before you go

• Peel's Straiton Retail Park — the 26 tenants listed above, two terraces, 1,073 spaces. This page.
• IKEA — a separate site on Costkea Way, EH20 9BY, west of the park, with its own car park and chargers. Costco shares that road, and is a membership warehouse club rather than a shop you can walk into. Asda and Sainsbury's hold their own stores on their own sites. Peel's scheme page places all four outside its park, describing it as sitting "within a 750,000 sq ft major retail destination including Ikea, Sainsbury's, Asda and Costco".
• A second, smaller "Straiton Retail Park" — a nine-unit, 68,793 sq ft parade on 6.18 acres with its own 169 spaces, marketed by a different agent, with The Gym Group, Dunelm, Subway, Home Bargains and The Food Warehouse among its neighbours. Same name, same postcode, different landlord.

Practical upshot: if the shop you want is Home Bargains, Dunelm, The Food Warehouse, The Gym Group, Subway, McDonald's, Sainsbury's, Asda, IKEA or Costco, it is at Straiton but not in the park described here. It will be within a few minutes' walk, but it is a different car park, a different time limit and a different set of hours.

The four names for one park

Peel's park answers to at least four names, which is why searching for it is so frustrating: Straiton Retail Park (the trading name), Pentland Retail Park (the postal address — Next's own store page gives "Unit 10, Pentland Retail Park, Straiton Mains Road", and Midlothian Council's retail evidence uses it too), The Peel Centre, Straiton, and Straiton Park Way. All the same place. Pentland Retail Park is not a separate scheme.

Things nobody publishes

A long list, and an honest one. We could find no accessibility information, no toilets, no Changing Places, no Shopmobility, no baby changing, no Wi-Fi, no gift card, no dogs policy, no lost property and no quiet hours for Straiton, from Peel or anybody else, and no shopper telephone number — Peel publishes only its Manchester head office, 0161 629 8435. A commercial listing ticks boxes for "wheelchair accessibility" and "24-hour access", but that is estate-agent boilerplate and we have not printed it as fact. Absent from the record is not absent from the park; it only means nobody says so.

If you want an enclosed centre instead

Straiton is an open park in an exposed spot on the bypass, with nothing under cover between the terraces. If the weather has turned, the alternatives are Fort Kinnaird on the eastern side of the city, The Gyle Shopping Centre to the west with its tram stop and free four-hour parking, and Ocean Terminal at Leith.

How it got here

Nobody publishes when Straiton Retail Park opened. Two commercial listings carry a "year built" field — 1999 here, 1991 for the smaller neighbouring scheme — but that is estate-agent metadata with nothing behind it, for two different properties. We are not converting it into an opening year.

What the council record does establish is what Straiton became. Midlothian Council's Retail and Town Centres Technical Note classifies it as a commercial centre rather than a town centre and shows it dominating retailing across the council area: 15,879 sq m of gross convenience floorspace, 38% of the Midlothian total, and about 58,000 sq m of comparison floorspace, 75% of the total. It lists the components as Pentland Retail Park, Sainsbury's, Asda, Costco, IKEA and M&S Simply Food — the council itself treating them as separate parts of one place — and records the Sainsbury's alone drawing "an extra £15 million of turnover from outside Midlothian". The data is from 2012 against a 2006 baseline.

The park as it stands is the product of a decade of Peel rebuilding it in place. By May 2014 The Penicuik Cuckoo — a community paper that has since stopped publishing, and by some distance the best local source on this park — was reporting that Peel was running out of land and that its permissions would expire within two years. Sofaworks, Arcadia's Outfit, Nando's and a vet practice for Pets at Home followed in 2014 and 2015, on top of a refurbishment of over 125,000 sq ft with new storefronts throughout.

The Next was the turning point. Peel took the former Homebase building, added a second floor and let it to Next as the retailer's largest Scottish store, opening over the weekend of 30 and 31 July 2016. Mark Whittaker, Group Property Director at Peel Land and Property, framed it as evidence of "the growing demand for out-of-town retailing". By that September the park was carrying over 6 million visitors a year and had been ranked a top 20 UK retail park by Property Week.

The Terrace was the last big build, and its cost is reported two ways. The council approved it in October 2018; Peel announced the start on 8 November 2019 as a £10 million, 25,500 sq ft, 33-week job by Muir Construction. The pandemic pushed it back and it completed in February 2021 — by which point the trade and local press were calling it a £13 million scheme. Both are printed because nobody reconciles them.

Ownership has been stable; the corporate structure has not. Peel has owned and developed this park in every dated source from 2014 to today and still lists Straiton as its flagship, and no sale has ever been reported. But the website footer now names Peel Retail and Leisure Group UK Limited, company 16236161, incorporated on 7 February 2025 under the shelf name AGHOCO 2337 Limited and renamed three days later as a holding company at Peel's Manchester headquarters. That is a group reorganisation. What it means for title to Straiton is not published, and we are not writing that the park changed hands, because no source says it did.

And Straiton is still growing, under a third landlord. On 30 April 2025 Midlothian Council's planning committee unanimously approved an application by Lansdowne Investment — not Peel — for two buildings on derelict land behind the Asda, containing shops, business units and a leisure facility with nearly 300 extra parking spaces. The site was once an Edinburgh Crystal warehouse, which had permission about twenty years earlier for a visitor centre and offices before the company went into administration within a year. Loanhead Community Council objected on road safety and saturation grounds while supporting the business units and leisure element. The planners concluded the development "is situated within the allocated area of the Straiton Commercial Hub and will be in keeping with the scale, character and appearance of the surrounding area". Both local titles ran it under the headline "Straiton Retail Park" — which is exactly how five owners come to be mistaken for one.