The new owners of Telford Shopping Centre have unveiled their £1 billion vision of creating a buzzing new heart for the town, with shops, hotels, restaurants and thousands of people living there.
It will be known as The Round – boasting a circular walkway around the current centre, linking shops with leisure, residential, civic and office areas via dramatic public spaces.
Well over 1,000 jobs will be created and more than 3,000 new homes will be built to animate the town centre with its own population for the first time.
Private, affordable and student accommodation will be provided in city-style apartment blocks with roof gardens above and “cafe culture” bars below.
And the owners have promised they have no intention of building on Telford Town Park.
The proposals have been put forward by Hark Group and Apollo which bought the shopping centre in June for £450 million.
Views of the public are now being sought and the owners hope to submit their masterplan application to Telford & Wrekin Council early next year.
The ideas – part of a 10 to 15-year programme – include a new ice rink on the site of Telford’s scruffy bus station, with ten pin bowling, bingo, cinema and sports bar nearby.
Cafes and restaurants will be clustered around public squares, enhanced with water features.
The shopping centre will expand by more than 50 per cent, giving it some 1.6 million sq ft of retail space.
Telford International Centre will become the focus of a new Convention Quarter, with hotels, flats and public performance space.
Rob Cossey, director of the Hark Group, said: “When we bought Telford Shopping Centre we saw it as a sleeping giant with huge potential. We have 52 acres – only half of which is built on – at the core of the town. The prospects are phenomenal.”
Councillor Andrew Eade, leader of Telford & Wrekin Council, said: “These are very exciting proposals.”
The proposals, which today went out for public consultation, were unveiled to an enthusiastic audience at the Holiday Inn last night.If planning permission is granted, work could start next year on a 10 to 15-year programme to create a proper town centre with more than 3,000 homes, vibrant evening economy and shoppers spending £400 million a year.
A key feature is to get rid of the island of shops and surface car parks cut off by a “race track” ring road and instead create a circular walkway linking shops with homes, workplaces and leisure facilities.
Rob Cossey, director of the Hark Group, said: “This is a fantastic opportunity for us.”
At the moment, he said, the focus of Telford was an American-style out-of-town shopping centre which was dead at night.
Simon Bee, of architects Benoy, said: “The Round is such a strong and simple idea. It allows us to create a centre which is embedded within the community and for the first time is no longer cut off by the surrounding box road.”
Tom Gray, of Telford International Centre, said business visitors were deterred by the town’s lack of night life and dull image.Features in masterplan to change area’s ‘dull image’
Key features of Telford regeneration proposals:
- Circular walkway around existing shopping centre.
- Bus station moved to Woodhouse Central to make way for new ice rink.
- Retail space to increase from one million to 1.6 million sq ft.
- Existing Primark store to triple in size, with work starting early next year.
- Possible move for Asda outside walkway with big department store nearby.
- Scheme would create 1,000 jobs and bring town centre to life at night.
- Town park and arena would be left alone.
- More than 3,000 new homes in town centre and another 600 on Civic Offices site.
- Dramatic new skyline with tallest building of 25 storeys visible from M54.
- Hotels, leisure, conference and cultural facilities would attract business visitors.
- Masterplan by architects Benoy who designed Birmingham’s new Bullring.
By Peter Johnson
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43 Comments
Looks like another Bracknell. If anyone has ever been there they’ll know that’s not a compliment.
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Its about time that the people of Telford are provided with proper Town centre rather then a over hyped shopping centre being the hub of shropshire.
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Wow, looks fantastic and so much better than what is there at the moment. Do it!
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My concerns are parking and the infrastructure. Will part of this redevelopment include a link from the M54 to the A442 at the Forge Junction? This has been mooted in the past but has never been put in place. The infrastructure around the Centre is horrendous now and needs a total overhaul.
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The good news with this is that they’re planning to do it by making more extensive use of land that they already own – rather than following Telford & Wrekin’s plans to swallow up parts of our Town Park.
I hope it all works out!
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Where are these thousands of people going to park? By the looks of these pictures, they’re building on top of the few car parks that are already there…
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wow looking good , i like it xx
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I have had the pleasure of meeting with the MD of Hark and was given the opportunity to see the plans, ideas and the enthusiasm of Hark.
I believe that the ideas they have for the Town Centre are innovative and will really take it forward in leaps and bounds.
I for one am very impressed.
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great stuff long overdue – telford really needs regeneration – lets get behind it and ditch our negativity about the town, its just snobbery really could be a nice place with a bit of money thrown at it
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Last night Telford ground to a halt because the car parks in the town centre were full and the roads could not cope – where will all the cars park and will the idiots at Telford & Wrekin be kept away from plannig the traffic flows? Please don’t tell us there will be public transport links and that we will all use the bus as this simply won’t happen. With a realistic approach this could work – but do we want it to – there is a lot more to life than shopping !!
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A case of fitting a round peg into a square hole!? Looks like a massive improvement – telford at present has no character so perhaps this evolution will bring us that. Time for telford to start delveloping a personality & some architecture!
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If you go to the website of the shopping centre and click on ‘The Round’ tab at the top of the screen there is more info. Apparently parking is to be increased by a few thousand. Probably in MSCPs at entrances to the town centre or undercrofts.
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I like the look of this. The previous comment about parking/transportation is worth looking at though. The current transport infrastructure is extremely weak. Can the Borough match this innovative project with plans for improved transportation? They should not now need to concern themselves with developing parts of the Town Park – let’s go for this and focus on making it accessible.
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Telford already has character, however the telford town center is dull, boring and unfortunately what most folks percieve Telford’s like as a whole. It’s great to see it moving forward to something more positive as the TDC made some abominations in the past with their so-called futuristic layouts becoming social disasters (Woodside/Sutton Hill anyone …) as crimminals could disappear into their maze of pathways etc etc …
The infrastructure will need major revamp too. Let’s hope it’s all put together with some sense this time.
It’s exciting to see Telford change so rapidy and become a major hub in the midlands.
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As with most things in Telford – the plans look great but I see no car parks or decent road systems to access the wonderful new buildings. Why do T & W always forget the motorist or have they not yet designed a good enough traffic stopper for this yet?????
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The car parking at the moment is all surface level, so is clear to see. With the new plans, it’s all underground/multi story and effectively hidden from sight (as it should be – who wants to look at car parks?). So don’t think that cars have been ignored, it’s not the case. Think about the Bullring – from photos/drawings, you can’t see the parking, but it’s all there, and plenty of it.
I think this is brilliant for Telford… very exciting!
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People moan about the traffic in telford. I just don’t see it. I would bet that the traffic flow is far better than most other older towns such as shrewsbury and wolverhampton which are complete gridlocks during every rush hour. The plans look interesting but i dont think you can just chuck a massive £1billion pound at something and hope for the best! Its not just buildings that make a town good, but the people that use them and live there!! Milton keynes has a state of the art town centre with no expenses spared, but its still dull and a rubbish night out!
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A million times better than Transforming Telford’s crazy ideas.
The idea of a ‘Round’ is inspired and should work very well. The other great thing is doing away with the race track part of the ring road and making it for buses and taxis etc. only. I hope the service vehicles are kept out as well except early morning and late evening.
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Excellent – No town Park development and no public money involved, I Hope.
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the sooner the better lived in telford for 30 years this will be great telford is a boar
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I attended last night’s presentation and yes I did get caught up in the traffic chaos. The concept that is being presented is like “mar…ite” Love it or hate it. The new owners of the 53 acre site have vision and what is more important they are willing to consult. Considering they have owned the site for less than 6 months their first vision is very impressive. Let us all work with them, we will not agree on every design item, but we have within our grasp the opportunity to create a remarkable and vibrant 24 hour centre worthy of a coming of age 21st City.
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And it will further destabilise and destroy what little Lord Northfield and his pals left of Dawley, Hadley, Wellington, Oakengates and Madeley. But the social deprivation on those ancient townships won’t matter as we will have a LOVELY shopping mall.
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roll on the next 10/15years and lets see if these plans comei into fruition, i hope they do as they look good, if you go to telfordshopping.co.uk and have a read of the plans on there, you will find more questions answered, there are new parking being provided, i think they will be by ways of multistory ones.
My only suggestion and i know its impossible is to try and bring the Railway station closer.
Another would be to have a monorail linking the town center with the 2 retail parks, and maybe the current place where the railway station is, futuristic it would look a modern town,city center
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Bravo!!! These plans for Telford are a triumph for 21st centure urban planning.
Huge congrats to Hark / Apollo and Benoy!
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Matt, get real. If you think that a shopping centre with 1.6million square feet of retail is going to be a direct competitor of our local district centres you are nuts.
This will be a destination shopping centre bringing people (and their money!) to provide jobs for local people living in Dawley, Wellington, Oakengates and Madeley.
This kind of development will attract people from a huge catchment area who will spend the day there and visit restaurants, engage in other activities, a real day out. It’s not competing with any of our local centres at all.
Don’t forget that there will be office space and over 3000 residential units too, so it’s not all about shopping.
Why can’t you have the good grace to embrace the change and thank the new owners of the shopping centre who are going to spend a shedload of cash improving our facilities? I really hope they do well.
It’s what Telford has needed for a long, long time and I’m delighted that the overwhelming response on here is positive. Lets hope the planners act quickly and positively too.
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A town centre is an organic thing that has grown over the centuries, not some jerry-built collection of shops bunged up by greedy developers.
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Its great news for Telford.
I say develop as much as you can, just look to the future. Telford has been stuck in a time warp for ages.
Will need improved transport system for sure.
I think it would be great to have a great big theatre aswell.
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Now I lived in Telford for 30 years and goodness knows it needs a face lift. My main concerns for the Town are:- is it going to have concrete facias and the usual cheap finish which will look good now or will it be glass frontages which tend to be ageless. Will it’s cafes have outside areas which are covered or will it all be inside and choked up. Will the bars just be lets see how many beers we can drink in an hour or will they be more classy. A building of 25 storeys is probably too tall for a place of Telfords stature and would look unsightly. Where will the parking be positioned because I’ll tell you now people aren’t going to use public transport Telfords too open a town for that. How will it be policed. These are obvious questions but I do hope it all goes through with them being addressed, not just by the council and the owners, but also the people of Telford, after all it’s they who live there. One final word change the name it’s a bit square.
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Can someone identify on the map where the ice rink is to be positioned please.
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Yay!it needs a good face lift!
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The Ice rink is in the area that was the bus station as the bus station is to move to the train station.
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It looks fantastic and sounds great, but my worry is the expense this will cause, the most recent development of the town centre was the addition built near the bus station, and surprise surprise all the shops down there such as Bank are rediculously expensive, you are hard pushed to find an item of clothing in any of the stores for less than £30. The rent will almost certainly increase which means we will see even more shops closing down or prices being bumped up! I am in two minds about whether this is a good or bad idea.
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calm down andy, Its a thew extra shops, water fountains, glass fronts and chrome (which is now yesterday as black as back) a thew over priced coffee shops, a hand full of chain pubs with zero atmosphere, poor service, over priced beer, no dress codes letting any body in.
wooopee a bigger Primark as well!
Asda George today Georgio Armani tomorrow…not
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looking good. Would benefit from ditching the tired looking council offices and police station, which would let the area down post regeneration. Perhaps the council could reapportion the planning fees raised from the development?
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looks great, but where is everyone going to park….
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Telford certainly needs a face lift. These new job opportunities will help Telford a lot. The amount of people I know in Telford that have a degree and end up working on minimum wage or people with no degree ending up jobless or moving out of Telford seems a lot, but with these new plans and job opportunities looks amazing and modern, I also hope some plans have been made to make “A good night out in Telford” as well.
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“Bus station moving to train station”. This is a joke, right? Telford’s public transport ’system’ has always been good for a laugh and this continues in that vein.
Interesting overall though.
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To those who have made negative comments without fully understanding the plans.
Car parking is being increased, but also hidden from sight … good move! Telford has looked like one big car park for too long.
This is not JUST a big shopping mall, the whole intention of these plans is to bring life to the centre … it will include apartments, leisure complexes, restaurants, bars and street cafes … good move! Telford has been dead for too long.
Finally, for those who are complaining about the road system … I have recently moved to Wrexham, which has far less vehicles and yet far more hold-ups, it’s an old town which simply wasn’t designed for vehicles. Telford, on the other hand, has far more vehicles and yet far less hold-ups because it is a new town that was designed for the car. Those who complain should try living in some older towns for a few weeks!
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The designs look impressive,but in practice could become a disaster if secuity is not put in place to stop the vandals and graffit idiots and the parking and road system are not well thought out.Also are the developers sure that they can fully occupy the 3000 new homes and apartments with decent people.(it might be a good idea to build and fill these in stages subject to demand)
It is worth remenbering that we already have a brillient shopping centre, lets handle it with care.
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i know i may abit too young, but i dont know why we need everything to change. I mean the town centre is fine as it is. just need to remove all the traffic lights round the town centre, you wonder why cars are queueing by house of fraser and near asda.
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What a brilliant bit of planning – Lets move the Ice Rink to the Bus Station, and move the Bus Station to the Railway Station.
Never mind parking, I’ve had my car vandalised in the park, so how will having parking underground help security?
Night Clubs? Best place for it, in the middle of town, away from housing – but now the plan is for 3,000 flats in tower blocks – hadn’t we learned a bit about that from previous high rise disasters?
And where are they all going to park?
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The concept of ‘having to go’ to a town centre is dead really – transport costs and environmental problems should really move Telford back into splitting up into efficient small towns again.
It’s daft everyone having to troll up to the ‘centre by car or bus when a walk or short bus journey to local shops would be much more sensible. Demolish Telford centre I say ;-)
“Telford” always was just a corporate tool to get investment locally till the rent needs paying and move to another new town.
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i`m sorry but has enougth money been wasted on Teford!
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