IKEA seeks go ahead to install customer pick-up lockers in Peterborough supermarket car park

New plans have been drawn up to make it easier for IKEA customers to collect their orders in Peterborough.

A large range of special pick-up lockers could be installed in the car park of the Tesco superstore at the Werrington Centre in Staniland Way, Werrington, specifically for shoppers of the Swedish flatpack furniture giant.

The venture aims to build on the success of an existing mobile pick-up point that IKEA has established under an agreement with Tesco.

The plans have been submitted to Peterborough City Council for consideration and show that all the orders will originate from the IKEA store based in Milton Keynes with deliveries to the pick-up lockers by van and occurring daily at set times, that are likely to be 10am, noon and 2pm.

The plans show that there will be eight prefabricated locker modules in the smaller of Tesco’s two car parks with a 2.2 metre long canopy in front of the lockers in order to shelter customers during bad weather.

Customers will have a 24 hour ‘window' in which to collect their order with access to the lockers via electronic touch-screen technology.

The lockers, which are expected to mean the loss of 10 car parking spaces, will be stocked, operated and maintained by IKEA as part of the arrangement with Tesco.

A document submitted with the application states: “Ample room is reserved in front of the units for customers to collect their purchases, and the area is defined and protected from vehicles circulating in the car park by a row of bollards.

It adds: “The level of daily trips resulting from the proposed lockers would be minimal, with about 15 trips per day. These would be spread throughout the day.

"It is therefore concluded that the impacts on the car park and local highway would be imperceptible."

IKEA’s existing agreement with Tesco has been in place since August last year and involves customers being handed their products by IKEA staff operating from a van in the Tesco car park.