Touchwood, Solihull: Shops, Parking, Directions and Opening Times

A town-centre shopping and leisure scheme built into Solihull rather than beside it, anchored by John Lewis, with a nine-screen Cineworld and a tripled Apple store in the old Topshop unit. Two things to know before you go: the parking is paid and barriered, and the height limit is 2.05 metres. Solihull Council does not own Touchwood — it owns Mell Square next door, and the two get confused constantly. Here is what the operator publishes, where its own pages contradict each other, and what nobody publishes at all.

Last checked 5 September 2026 · Opening times and store lists change — check with the centre before travelling.

Touchwood sits on Homer Road in the middle of Solihull, about nine miles east of Birmingham, and it is worth saying plainly at the top that this is not an out-of-town retail park. It is a town-centre scheme, and its operator is explicit that it was "designed to integrate into the town centre's fabric rather than function as a standalone retail annexe". That single sentence explains most of what follows: the paid barriered car parks, the short trading hours, the walk from the railway station, and the way its footprint bleeds into the older shopping streets around it.

The ownership is the thing most sources get wrong, including the one we started from. Solihull Council does not own Touchwood. The council took control of Mell Square, the separate and older scheme immediately next door, and that is what the council's own news release describes. Touchwood itself has been owned since 22 July 2021 by The Ardent Companies, an American investor, which bought it from Lendlease. The price was never disclosed. Ardent was still named as the owner in trade coverage in January 2026, and we found no later sale, refinancing or receivership anywhere between 2022 and 2026 — a searched negative rather than an assumption.

The operator's site, touchwoodsolihull.co.uk, is live and genuinely the centre's own, and it publishes a great deal — a full tariff, a height restriction, an unusually frank statement about electric vehicles. What it does not do is agree with itself. The number of shops appears four different ways, and the Thursday closing time three different ways across three of the operator's own pages. We have printed every version and said where each came from.

Some of what you will read elsewhere about Touchwood is really about Mell Square, or about Solihull town centre as a whole — the "6,000 parking spaces" figure being the clearest example, since that covers the town centre including Mell Square and the operator prints it on the same page as Touchwood's own roughly 1,700. We have kept the two apart throughout. What follows draws on the operator's own pages, a Cushman & Wakefield release from the 2021 sale, AccessAble's access guide, John Lewis's own store page, a Historic England list entry and Solihull Council. Where sources disagree we print both and name each; where nobody publishes something — here that includes the architect, the build cost and the current centre manager — we say so.

Touchwood's exceptional location and strong tenant line-up were important factors in our decision to invest - underpinned by its emergence as the only John Lewis anchored centre in the region.

The essentials

Opening times

Checked against the operator's own pages on 3 September 2026. Monday to Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday are consistent everywhere we looked, and they are short by the standards of a scheme this size — 6pm on most days, and 5pm on Sunday. If you work full time, Thursday and Saturday are your options.

Thursday is a mess, and it is the operator's own mess. Three of its pages say three different things. The dedicated opening-times page says 9.30am to 7pm, and then adds separately that "John Lewis, Next, Apple and selected stores open until 8pm". The corporate page says a flat 9.30am to 8pm for the whole centre. And the homepage carries an undated widget reading "9.30am-7.00pm" that names no day whatsoever. We have printed all three because we cannot tell which is current, and because the difference between "the centre shuts at 7" and "the centre shuts at 8" matters if you are driving over after work.

The safest reading is that the mall trades to 7pm on a Thursday and that the larger stores hold their doors open an hour longer. That is a reading, not a published fact. Ring 0121 709 6900 if it decides your evening.

There are no bank holiday, Christmas or Easter hours published anywhere, by the operator or by anyone else. For a centre that trades to 6pm on an ordinary Tuesday, that is a real gap over a Christmas week, and we would ring rather than turn up.

Getting there

By road

The operator does publish a junction, so we can print one: "Junction 5 of the M42 is only a short distance away". It also names the M6, M5 and M40 as the wider motorway connections. What it does not do — and this is unusual — is name a single A-road anywhere. If you are coming in off local roads rather than the motorway, the postcode B91 3GJ is what you want, or B91 3RA if you are heading for John Lewis specifically.

Parking — read this before you drive

Touchwood is one of the minority of destinations on this site where parking is paid, and it is barriered with ANPR on top. There are around 1,700 spaces across two integrated zones, Orange and Blue.

• Up to 2 hours — £3.40, rising on a sliding scale to £20.00 for 12 to 24 hours.
• A flat £2.00 after 6pm, valid until 6am. If you are coming for the cinema or dinner, that is the rate that applies.
• Motorcycles are free.
• Pay by contactless at the barrier or a machine, or through RingGo.

The height restriction is 2.05m and it is confirmed twice — by the operator's own getting-here page and independently in AccessAble's guide. Low enough to catch a van, a roof box or a tall estate, with no published alternative for an over-height vehicle. Judge it before you commit to the ramp.

Blue Badge holders: more than ten bays, 370cm by 500cm, between 15 and 42 metres from the Orange zone entrance. They are not free and they cannot be booked in advance, and no concessionary rate is published — not the arrangement at most centres, and worth knowing before you set off.

By train

Solihull station is, in the operator's own words, "just a 10 minute walk from Touchwood". That is the operator's figure and it is the only walking time published by anyone.

One qualification, and it matters. AccessAble's guide to Solihull station records 15 or more steps to the platform, with a lift available. And nothing published by anyone — operator, rail company or AccessAble — describes the walk between the station and the centre as step-free. If step-free matters to you, that ten-minute walk is unverified ground, and we would rather say so than imply it is level.

The taxi rank is at the railway station too, about 25 metres from the station entrance; we could not confirm a rank at Touchwood itself. For a cab home with shopping, the station is the reliable answer.

By bus, coach and bike

The operator publishes no bus routes at all, which is a real gap. National Express West Midlands lists services 1S, 4, 4A, 5, 6, 49, 72, 76, X2 and X12 as serving Solihull — the town, not the centre — and we could not confirm which of them stop at or near Touchwood, nor any bus interchange distinct from the stops around the station. Check before relying on it. No coach parking, drop-off or group arrangement is published by anyone. Cycle parking is at Cloister Walk, Jubilee Gardens on Homer Road and Theatre Square.

Accessibility

AccessAble holds a full guide to Touchwood, which puts it among the better-documented centres on this site. Step-free entrances at Herbert Road and Cloister Walk; ramps at the Orange and Blue car park entrances, at Mill Lane and at the Poplar Arcade.

There is a Changing Places toilet, on the Orange zone car park level, with an overhead hoist and a 190cm bench. It is radar-key operated and the key is held at the Crescent Arcade desk, so collect it before you need it.

Shopmobility operates from the Orange zone car park level: Monday to Wednesday and Friday to Saturday 9.30am to 5.30pm, Thursday 9.30am to 7pm, Sunday 11am to 4.30pm. Book ahead. No charge is stated either way, and — oddly — nobody names the organisation that runs it.

A portable hearing loop is available at "The Hub" reception. A multi-faith prayer room off Cloister Walk appears in AccessAble's guide but not on any of the operator's own facilities pages, so treat it as documented by a third party rather than confirmed by the centre.

The shops

Four published store counts exist and none agrees with the others; all four are in the table above. Nobody explains the difference between a unit, a shop and a brand here, so we have not picked a winner.

The anchor

John Lewis is still trading, confirmed on John Lewis's own store page on 3 September 2026. We checked because the question matters more here than almost anywhere: Ardent's managing director described Touchwood at the point of purchase as "the only John Lewis anchored centre in the region", which makes the anchor the explicit investment case for the whole building.

The best story here: Apple's one-day move

Apple closed its Touchwood store on 24 July 2025 and reopened the next day, 25 July 2025, in a different unit — the former Topshop space in the Crescent Arcade. In doing so it went from around 4,000 sq ft to around 10,000 sq ft, roughly tripling in size.

Topshop's 2021 collapse left a large void in the middle of the arcade; four years later it was filled by the one retailer with both the demand and the balance sheet to take it, and the centre lost exactly one day's trading in the process.

Recent arrivals

Five names arrived during 2025, datable only to the year — no month is published for any: Space NK, Sweaty Betty, Lisa Angel, Wendy's and Beleza Rodizio, a Brazilian steakhouse.

There is a published discrepancy here and we are reporting it rather than resolving it. The operator's own store guide lists Lisa Angel and Jamaya as "coming soon", while the trading report for the same period lists Lisa Angel as a 2025 arrival that has already happened. One is out of date and we cannot tell which. Three is shown as "closed for a refurb", with no reopening date.

The 2021 signings

Five lettings were announced together on 24 September 2021, two months after Ardent bought the centre: TAG Heuer on the Crescent Arcade ground floor, Xcelerate Gym at 7,819 sq ft, Laser Clinics, Alioli and Dirty Wild Wings. Watches, fitness, aesthetics and two restaurants — not a conventional shop among them, which tells you where the repositioning is aimed.

Departures — a sourcing gap, not a clean record

We could not find a single named, dated store closure at Touchwood between 2023 and 2026, across two rounds of searching. That does not mean nothing has closed — centres this size lose tenants every year, and Topshop's unit sat empty here for four of them. It means the closures are not reported anywhere we could reach, which is a gap in the record rather than evidence of stability.

Leisure

Cineworld, nine screens, listed as trading on the operator's own pages — but cineworld.co.uk returned a 403 to us, so we could not verify hours or showtimes. Check before booking a screening.

Useful to know

The three things that catch people out

Parking is paid. The height limit is 2.05m. There is no EV charging at all. None of those is what you would assume from a modern centre of this size, and all three are published clearly by the operator. On the last of them Touchwood does what most operators will not, and says it outright: "We regret to inform you that we currently have no EV charging facilities available." Installation is waiting on electricity network upgrades, no date is given, and drivers are pointed to Manor Square instead. Do not arrive low.

Gift cards and lost property

Gift cards are sold at the Guest Information Desk on Jubilee Walk, outside Beaverbrooks, which also handles lost property. Terms, expiry and the number of participating stores are not published, so ask at the desk before buying.

The cheap way to do an evening

Parking is a flat £2.00 after 6pm, valid until 6am. With a nine-screen cinema and more than twenty restaurants on site, that is the sensible way to use the place — and on any day but Thursday the shops will have shut at 6pm anyway.

Do not confuse Touchwood with Mell Square

Mell Square is the separate, older scheme immediately next door, and it is the one Solihull Council took control of. That confusion is why Touchwood's ownership is misreported all over the internet, and why the "6,000 parking spaces" number gets attached to a centre with about 1,700. If you read something about council ownership or town-centre masterplanning in Solihull, check which scheme it is about.

Things nobody publishes

We could find no confirmation of free Wi-Fi, lockers, cash machines, Amazon lockers, click-and-collect or baby-changing facilities on any readable operator page, nor a published dogs policy, quiet hour or current centre manager. That is not the same as saying none exist — most centres this size have cash machines and baby change. Phone 0121 709 6900 if one of them decides your trip.

How it got here

Touchwood opened in September 2001. No opening day is published by the operator or by Solihull Council, and while a cinema-history site gives 7 September 2001 for the Cineworld, that is a third-party record about one tenant rather than a corroborated opening date for the centre, so we have not printed it as one.

It was built by the Lendlease Retail Partnership, in a development structure involving the John Lewis Partnership and local authorities — which is exactly why John Lewis has anchored it since day one rather than arriving later as a tenant. The architect and the build cost are not published anywhere. One name circulates: 3DReid, and it should be handled carefully — 3DReid is the architect of the stalled 2015 expansion scheme, not of the 2001 building, and crediting it with the original is a mistake we have seen made.

The house the centre is named after

Touchwood Hall was a mansion built in 1712, home over its life to the Holbeche, Madeley and Martineau families. It stood for more than 250 years and was demolished in 1963, after a compulsory purchase order and despite preservation efforts, to make way for Mell Square. Nearly forty years later the new shopping centre took the lost house's name.

Whether Touchwood stands on the Hall's exact footprint, we cannot tell you. Solihull Council's own history page does not resolve it and no other source addresses it. The Hall was cleared for Mell Square; Touchwood is the scheme next door. The name travelled; the geography is unproven.

The listed building nearby

The Church of St Alphege on The Square, B91 3RQ, is listed Grade I — Historic England list entry 1076693, first listed 5 December 1949. Its reasons for designation describe a church that "retains a high proportion of significant medieval fabric, with its various phases and alterations reflecting the long history of Solihull", holding "a very good set of historic fittings which also represent many different periods and are of consistently high quality", with group value for its "contribution to the townscape of Solihull, and relationship with other listed buildings".

Historic England says nothing at all about the shopping centre, and we are not going to manufacture a connection.

Ownership, and what has happened since

The Ardent Companies, an American investor, completed its purchase of Touchwood from Lendlease on 22 July 2021. The price was never disclosed, and we are not going to guess at one — the figure that circulates online is a footfall number from the same coverage, not a price.

Ardent was still named as owner in January 2026 trade coverage, and two rounds of searching turned up no later sale, refinancing or receivership between 2022 and 2026. Asset management sits with Sovereign Centros, leasing with Cushman & Wakefield and Knight Frank, and the repositioning is branded "Project Atlanta" — Atlanta being where Ardent is based. A January 2026 piece refers to "Sovereign Centros from CBRE" without explaining the relationship, and we could not establish it either.

For context, the West Midlands' other large destinations — Merry Hill, The Fort Shopping Park and Designer Outlet West Midlands — are all out-of-town schemes with free parking, which is precisely the competitive position a paid, height-restricted town-centre car park has to answer.