Dalton Park, Merton

...bargains.

Dalton Park, in Murton near Sunderland is a Retail Factory Outlet boasting sixty plus outlets selling the best in designer goods at knock off prices. Their managers and staff will be keen to persuade you that there is nothing wrong with the stock. There are no quality seconds here. All the stock on sale at Dalton Park is merely excess stock from the high street or last season's items that are being sold through to clear. ...
...the bottom of a hill, Dalton Park suddenly rears up in front of you like a Mediaeval encampment. It's very easy to reach from both Newcastle (use the A19) Durham (use the A690) or from Sunderland (use the A182) and there are hundreds of free parking spaces. If you're travelling from farther afield, come up / down the A1 / M1 and take the Durham turning. Public transport isn't too bad either - buses run regularly from Sunderland and Durham, but if ... more

Factory outlets are a bit of a mystery to me. We're led to believe that retailers have these huge stocks of stuff that they can't sell through the high street, so to whip up a bit of interest, they have created factory outlets. These factory outlets scream tales of huge savings and limitless bargains but I'm not convinced. A bargain, for me, is something that you would have bought at full price, but were able to get for less. Factory outlets do not, therefore, contain bargains.

Dalton Park, in Murton near Sunderland is a Retail Factory Outlet boasting sixty plus outlets selling the best in designer goods at knock off prices. Their managers and staff will be keen to persuade you that there is nothing wrong with the stock. There are no quality seconds here. All the stock on sale at Dalton Park is merely excess stock from the high street or last season's items that are being sold through to clear. Like I said, I'm not convinced.

Getting There

Perched at the bottom of a hill, Dalton Park suddenly rears up in front of you like a Mediaeval encampment. It's very easy to reach from both Newcastle (use the A19) Durham (use the A690) or from Sunderland (use the A182) and there are hundreds of free parking spaces. If you're travelling from farther afield, come up / down the A1 / M1 and take the Durham turning. Public transport isn't too bad either - buses run regularly from Sunderland and Durham, but if you are travelling from much further afield, journey times are probably prohibitive.

About the Park

I liked the design of Dalton Park. If I were to design a shopping mall, it would look like this. For a start it's all on one level. No stairs, no lifts and no escalators means maximum freedom of movement for everyone, but particularly anyone in a wheelchair. It's also designed so that it's virtually in the open air. The shop units are arranged along a winding avenue, protected by large, white canvas awnings that keep the sun and the rain off, but mean that the place is full of fresh air. It's such a refreshing change from the stale air and artificial lighting of your average modern retail park and on a sunny day it can be a rather pleasant experience simply to stroll along and window shop. It's meticulously clean too - regular patrols of cleaners mean that litter is almost unheard of and everyone seems happy to keep it that way too. There are constant security patrols, a children's creche and a playground too, so the place really does cater for everyone.

About the Shops

Once you've overcome the fairly impressive layout and facilities, you then start to get into the nitty gritty of wandering around the shops. All the shops here are (supposedly) factory outlet units. This is the first major disadvantage. Whilst I fully endorse the need to keep high street and outlet retailing separate, at Dalton Park, this is really taken to the extreme. There isn't even a newsagent to grab a paper or enter the lottery. Nonetheless, armed with this information you can manage your expectations around what you will / not be able to buy.

As a "designer" outlet, Dalton Park leaves a lot to be desired. There is not a whiff of Calvin Klein, Hugo Boss, D & G, Diesel or similar throughout the park and my first observation was that the management clearly have a different definition of "designer brands" to mine. There are some of the major high street stores, such as Next, Adidas and Marks & Spencer, but I had never heard of at least half of all the store in the mall. The Designer Room, HKA, Ice Blue, Petroleum, Kurt Muller, Roman Originals - the list is endless. I would estimate that at least 50% of the stores do NOT have a genuine high street presence in your average town or city. Of those that do, brands such as Adidas, Ellesse, Speedo and CAT are more likely to be found IN a retailer, rather than as a retailed in their own right. As a shopping experience, you tend therefore to be rather limited from the outset. Not keen on CAT footwear? That's one shop out then. Don't use a Wonderbra? There goes another one. Very soon, as you pick your way along the row of shops, you find yourself rapidly eliminating the list of interesting shops.

Once you have found yourself a list of shops in which to be interested, I would urge further caution before you imagine yourself adorned in cut-price designer gear. If I were asked to describe the stock contained in the stores, I would probably place it somewhere between "absolute rubbish" and "wouldn't be seen dead" with a smattering of "I'd rather die." The fact that the (genuine) factory stock is last season's means that it is, well, out of fashion. So you'll get all the vile FCUK T-shirts that nobody liked three months ago, jeans over whichTrinny and Susannah would have spasms and shirts that even your Grandad would call old-fashioned. Some of the shops also carry some very strangely limited ranges. Tommy Hilfiger, for instance, carry a huge range of ladies' jeans but only stock men's jeans in a wasit size 31". What is that all about? Similarly, one of the shoe shops only had trainers in a size 4 in one colour. Understandably, when you have excess stock, then it might be limited by size or colour but you need to bear this in mind if you do manage to find something you like the look of.

For me, the biggest "swizz" of the whole place is the large volume of rotten clothing that has clearly come straight from the sweatshop to the outlet at cut-throat prices. (I couldn't really comment on the ladieswear but my friends seemed to agree). Petroleum is like Top Man, only cheaper and more vile with rip-off versions of £50 T-shirts at 2 for a tenner. Quality is low on the agenda and I quickly realised that the shop was actually The Officers Club (shudder) trading under a different name. "The Designer Room" wasn't much better, although there were some good bargains in Suits You with branded Ted Baker suits at fairly competitive prices. There were various shoe shops with well-known brands but they only stocked last season styles which, again, would limit most people who actually like fashionable clothes. Next and M & S seemed as popular as ever but (rather like when they have a sale) I'm quite sure that people were only buying things because they were cheap, rather than because they actually wanted them.

Dalton Park doesn't just do clothing. There are also shops selling jewellery (nothing too exciting) luggage (not much cheaper than the high street) bedding (more expensive than the high street) and kitchen wear. In the shops selling the latter, there were some good deals - I spotted a set of cutlery I'd seen in Selfridge's at about 40% off the price but stocks and range are still limited and there is a lot of crap in there too. The book shop was fairly good - The Da Vinci Code for £3.99 for example and some other titles that seemed quite new at discounted prices. Check the stock though. We picked up Jamie Oliver's new cook book and found that half the pages wer upside down. There is also a toy shop full of crap - some bargains, some myths but all very down market.

Eating

If you get hungry, I'd recommend going home. There is a Starbucks (just as over-priced as the high street) a McDonald's (just as vile) a Spud-U-Like (just as unpopular) and a Thorntons café (just as slow to get served.) The only plus point is that if you sit outside with a coffee you really are outside (rather than in a mall) so it can be quite nice on a sunny day.

Service

Service is, erm , sporadic. Check the refund policy on a shop by shop basis as many of them will only offer exchanges or credit notes, despite the centre management team claiming otherwise. I bought a pair of CAT boots (what a Chav, eh?) and then immediately changed my mind (well, about an hour later) but was told I would have to wait three days for a refund in case the refund cleared before the payment. Whatever! A short tantrum later and the situation was resolved but you do wonder where they get these people from.

Summary

My closing observation of Dalton Park would be that you can tell the difference between high street shoppers and most of the customers here. For starters, everyone is a lot older, evidence enough that genuine designer gear was not to be found and anyone that had wandered in by mistake quickly scuttled out again. I suspect that the regular shoppers might find more bargains because they are continually looking but if you think this is a simple, cheap proposition that will kit you out without breaking the bank, you will be so disappointed.

Loved the layout, design and facilities, hated the shops and felt thoroughly embarassed to have ever been dragged here in the first place.

You can get more information at the park's official web site http://www.dalton-park.co.uk/

Not recommended
 

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