High Street plan for town centre
Friday 19th October 2007, 12:05PM BST.
A £250 million vision that would give Telford a proper, bustling High Street in the town centre and create more than 1,000 jobs was unveiled today.Development chiefs have launched their plan to build a “heart” for the town centre, with a bustling central street featuring bars, cafes and shops that would be busy day and night.
It would stretch from Telford International Centre up the hill through Southwater to the borough council headquarters.
Under the proposals from the town’s development agency, work could start with a radical overhaul of the 30-acre site that houses the ice rink, library and Meeting Point House
. Work could start as early as 2009.
Sarah Raper, chief executive of Transforming Telford, said: “I am very confident this will happen. That is how we are going to be judged. Everyone pays their taxes and they have an expectation.”
Telford & Wrekin Council, English Partnerships and other bodies are putting in £30 million to draw another £220 million from private investors.
A key part of the plan is to have people living in the town centre, above shops and bars, which Telford is currently missing.
There may also be a new “leisure village”, possibly on the town park’s arena, but this, like the rest of the scheme, is still open to consultation and change.
And Mrs Raper said the scheme would encourage more people to use Telford town park with new links.
The plans are aimed at saving the town centre – which has been labelled “bland” – and giving a boost to economic development across the borough.
Shropshire Star on Twitter
Keep updated with the latest breaking news and content on our Twitter feed.
Lifestyle
Interactive Dining Out map
Hundreds of reviews by the Shropshire Star and Express & Star's teams to help you decide where to eat.
Entertainment
All the film reviews
Before you plan a trip to the pictures, get our critics' verdicts on all the latest movie releases.
OUR NEW APP
Get the new Shropshire Star app
Download the Shropshire Star’s new app to your iPad or iPhone to get one week of access to our digital newspapers absolutely FREE.
shropshirestar.com
Popular sections
Useful links
Can I suggest driving a bulldozer through the town centre, turning round and coming back in the manner of a gardener cutting the lawn. about three years of continual dozing and the whole eyesore should be just about removed.
Report abuse
And here was me (and lots of other people) believing the council when they said there was going to be full public consultation. It appears that our opinions don’t matter much when weighed against those of the unelected “Transforming Telford”.
Report abuse
The phrases “Silk Purse” and “Sows Ear” come to mind..
Report abuse
And free parking?
Report abuse
that’s nice lets have a bustling central street featuring bars, cafes and shops that would be busy day and night, and lets charge the punters a fortune to use the amenities with car park charges.
why not spend the money on some of the town high streets that have been ruined by the town centre?
Report abuse
Make it look like Cheshire Oaks instead of an old-fashioned mall that was 20 years out of date when the built it in 1970.
Report abuse
Vision. That’s a word you Shrewsburyites will never have heard before.
I hear you knocking Telford all the time, but at least we have vision, you don’t even know what the word means!
Report abuse
There are already loads of high streets in ‘telford’ that have been declining and falling down for years! Building a new one where the current ‘town centre’ lies, is a waste of time! How can it be a proper high street if to get there you need to drive about 5-10 miles being as most people live in one of the many old towns and villages that were swamped by the idiot planners of the 60′s and 70′s? AS it stands, the town centre is more of an edge of town retail and business park. Are we going to have the worlds first ever edge of town high street instead?!
Report abuse
I agree with Barry Crook (above) only bulldoze Shrewsbury instead.What we need is loads more bars, as at the moment we have one of the worst binge drinking cultures in the country, so we have a little way to go to get to the number one spot.
Report abuse
Vision and Telford dont go together well Telford is a joke and will never be as good as Shrewsbury ! Just look at the awards that Shrewsbury has won ! Has telford won any I dont think they have apart from being the most boring place to shop or do any thing else in , The only places in telford that are worth looking at are the proper towns like Wellington , Oakensgate etc that where killed by the joke Telford Town Centre !
Report abuse
Yes, the Town Centre is just a business and retail park – so play to its strengths, don’t try to make it be something it will never achieve. It has failed as a social centre and no re-development can redeem that.
It was badly conceived and badly designed in the first place. And put in the wrong place! If it had been set around an existing social centre it might have worked.
It also reminds me of some of the town/city centres in the formerly communist states of Eastern Europe.
Improve and cheapen the car parking. Progressively re-develop the malls to give a better environment and attract more interesting tenants.
Bars and night-clubs? With 90% of the customers driving home? I think not!
Above all, look at a public transport system which avoids using the congested roads – a light rail or tram system – using as much as possible of the existing closed and freight only railway alignments.
With a bit of vision and limited land aqcuisition there could be a rail service linking Admaston and Wellington to the new Ketley village, Oakengates, Telfod Centre, Aqueduct, Coalbrookdale and Ironbridge. The technology exists over at Stourbridge but seems out of sight of the planners.
Report abuse
I thought the Tories were going to scrap Transforming telford?
Report abuse
Finally there appears to be some progress on sorting out that hideous mess that thay call a town centre. The sooner they create a centre for people rather than cars the better.
Report abuse