Telford Town Centre Southwater regeneration is launched

Monday 4th October 2010, 3:15PM BST.

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A £250 MILLION scheme to revitalise Telford – bringing shops, bars, cafes and hundreds of homes to the town centre – will create more than 2,000 jobs over the next 15 years, it was revealed today.

And a further 600 to 700 construction jobs will also be on offer as work to transform the Southwater area of the town centre gets under way in earnest in December.

News of the jobs bonanza came as Telford & Wrekin Council and partners The Southwater Events Group and the Homes and Communities Agency today unveiled details of the proposals at a launch at the authority’s civic offices.

The HCA is contributing £9.5 million towards the £250 million investment, £100 million of which has already been secured.

Included in the revamp of the site between the Telford International Centre (TIC) and Telford Shopping Centre will be 30,000sq ft of office space, a new learning and media centre to bolster the library, two new hotels and bars, restaurants, cafes and shops.

There will also be a leisure hub with space for a swimming pool or water park and multi-screen cinema. A total of 330 apartments and town houses are also to be built as part of the scheme.

A new council headquarters is also to be built in Southwater, with Asda taking over the former civic headquarters site and building a new supermarket.

David Sidaway, head of property and design at the council, said 2,000 jobs would be created over the life of the project.

Council leader Councillor Andrew Eade told today’s launch that a public-private sector partnership was the driving force behind the scheme and it was “the single most important thing to happen to Telford in the last 30 years”.

By Simon Hardy

View more: Telford news.

1
eva land

October 4, 2010 at 14:37

Sounds like b****r off Mr Barrow, Telford is metamorphosing into Southwater,not alas as he hoped Shropshire Council.

Southwater(sounds more like a urinary tract infection !!)

“got a bit o’trouble with me waterworks darn south, luv!”

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2
Grey

October 4, 2010 at 16:29

It looks ok, better than what is there at the moment any how. It’ll feel strange walking down an actual street in central Telford.

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3
dob dobbs

October 5, 2010 at 00:00

and here was me thinking Thomas Telford was Scottish.

He must be spinning in his grave that our council are bastardising his great legacy for the sake of a new council building.

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4
eva land

October 5, 2010 at 10:18

Yes he was Scottish and a great moderniser. Why use him in such a demeaning way amd why sell the project to the public like we’re all nursery school age?
Why make Telford sound like something south of the Thames?

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5
spencer

October 5, 2010 at 14:29

I love the idea of a waterpark, save having to go to Stoke-on-Trent

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6
Oh Dear

October 5, 2010 at 16:17

It’s a shame that they spend so much money on a place where the people will most likely use and abuse it.
You can make the town more appealing but you can’t change the people in Telford.

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- Offended
  
  October 6, 2010 at 13:01
  
  A rather slanderous generalisation on the population of Telford! There are people in every Town and City who abuse the facilities provided; I, for one, would like to have a wider and better choice of facilities rather than have to travel to other Towns and am not in the habit of abusing anything I use. I suggest ‘Oh Dear’ apologises to the majority and, in future, makes a less offensive sweeping statement.
  
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  - Tuff
    
    October 7, 2010 at 08:06
    
    So oh dear if i see a new building i am most likely to use and abuse it just because i’m from Telford? Well in that case i’m going to have a few long weekends ahead of me and here was me planning to do my garden in the summer oh well must live up to my stereotype instead!! cant disapoint now can i?
    
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- twisting my melon
  
  October 7, 2010 at 08:23
  
  Yet again, the good people of Shrewsbury remain more concerned about what goes on in Telford while they watch their own town die.
  
  Lighten up Farmer Giles..
  
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7
Jack Sexington

October 7, 2010 at 16:24

This Shrewsbury vs Telford thing does my head in. I lived in Shrewsbury for 10 years and recently moved to Muxton. People said that I was mad until I pointed out that my insurance costs actually fell because the crime rate in SY1 was so high!

At least Telford town centre is getting a makeover which it does need in all honesty. However, it’s money well spent unlike that stupid Darwin sculpture on Smithfield road.

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- twisting my melon
  
  October 8, 2010 at 13:51
  
  Hi Jack, i’ve lived here 12 years now since moving from Shrewsbury after being told i too was mad. I now live in Madeley and find it a great improvement on Springfield where i used to live..
  
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8
eva land

October 8, 2010 at 00:19

I hope that you are lucky to get some public art in Telford Jake.
It is something that makes a place special though,rather like marmite regarding who likes it and who doesn’t.

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- Brimondo
  
  October 8, 2010 at 22:24
  
  That’s right Eva. A town is made up of so much more than shops, it needs character, history, quirks, etc. The trouble with Telford is that its obsessed with commerce. It’s essentially a bland, soulless shopping centre ringed by a few houses & lethal roads. Where’s the heart?
  
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  - twisting my melon
    
    October 9, 2010 at 09:25
    
    Have a read of the story Brimondo, especially the bit about the shops, bars, cafe’s and hundreds of homes. It will have a town centre that doesn’t close at six o’clock. If thats not giving a town a ” soul ” ( not sure if there is a town heaven up there anyway ). Then please can you explain what does
    
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9
Jayne Oliver

October 8, 2010 at 16:05

Were you like me in finding the video very naff and amateurish? I couldn’t help laughing. And while I’m all in favour of this regeneration, I don’t think that the councillors posh palace should be at the centre of it. We’re supposed to be saving money on that front, not spending it before we’ve got it. If they’re selling the old building to be able to pay for this new one, where the hell are the staff going to go in the meantime?

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- James Agg
  
  October 9, 2010 at 16:05
  
  Jayne, couldn’t agree more, I thought I was watching a 80′s public service broadcast at first, dated, poorly scripted piece of rubbish and nearly as dated as the Town Centre itself, not quite though
  
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- Sydney Evans
  
  October 14, 2010 at 13:50
  
  The animation in the video could have been a lot better, surely there are good animators in Telford? Disney was doing better in the 1930′s.
  I too wondered why the character did not have a Scottish lilt. Says much about the ‘professional’ research behind it I suppose.
  
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10
James Agg

October 9, 2010 at 16:03

Well I’m all for trying to bring in a different class of people into the area, Telford needs a night time economy for as long as I was a kid, Telford has had nothing to stay here for. However as usual I approach this cautiously currently near the Wetherspoons pub there are numerous old estate agents and Bookies now touting for interest from potential trendy bar owners, and the posters that are decorating the frontage look good. However who in there right mind would want to buy a unit next to the double unit Fast food monstrosity that currently occupies a space opposite Wetherspoons. This place just looks completely out of kilter with what they are trying to aspire to be.

Its has an horrendously garish frontage for anyone who has not seen the place, with makeshift tables and copies of the Sun everywhere, it looks a mess and indeed a bit chavvy. Telford needs to understand its core audience before it gets ahead of itself, as this revolution will take a while.

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11
Claire

October 17, 2010 at 00:14

There’s nothing wrong with the old council building, they should be spending any spare money that will be needed to kit out the new building on the needy of Telford.

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