A two year marketing campaign to bring more shops to Sutton has fallen flat.

Retail consultant GCW had been instructed to market the ground floor space at the £90m Sutton Point development.

This included a "full marketing campaign" featuring "targeted approaches to potential occupiers."

But little interest was garnered.

A document attached to a planning application on behalf of developers CNM Estates read: "The lack of demand is partly due to the poor state of the market at the present but primarily due to the lack of footfall along this stretch of road, poor visibility from the high road where most of the foot traffic passes along and the oversupply of vacant unity in superior locations nearer to Sutton Train Station.

"We received some vague interest from a coffee shop looking to capitalise on the potential business from the hotel guests, occupiers of the residential units and office workers but this fell away as they decided there was not enough critical mass within Sutton Point alone without foot traffic."

This lac of interest lead to an application being submitted to Sutton Council seeking permission to change the use of the ground floor and mezzanine levels from retail to offices.

More specifically it was implied that Regus - an office space company - would set up shop in the vacant areas.

"We believe Regus's Spaces proposal will provide an interactive frontage at street level and be a positive addition to the overall scheme.

"It would also be the catalyst to attract more occupiers to the scheme in general, given the increase in footfall due to an occupied office space.

"In combination with a small cafe type business adjacent to the Regus Spaces office, this would create a busier square outside the development as opposed to the increasingly slower retail industry.

"Given the significant interest in the existing new office space at Sutton Point, we believe providing further quality office space will bring more employment to the borough and benefit local business."

This application for a change of use was approved by the council.