£1 billion vision for town centre

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

How Telford town centre will look when the development, which includes hotels and restaurants, is finished.

The Round will feature a circular perimeter road with 24-hour entertainment, retail and leisure facilities.

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An artist's impression of the new-look Primark store, which will form the first stage of the redevelopment. Work is hoped to start in the new year.

The past and the present . . . the grey area shows the existing Telford Shopping Centre with the planned expansions in white.

The orange line shows the route of the circular pedestrian walkway. Top left is a new department store, while the bottom will see the creation of a leisure zone on and around the site of the existing bus station.

David Henderson-Williams, from Hark, Tom Gray, from TIC, Rob Cossey, from Hark, and Simon Bee, from Benoy, at the launch at the Holiday Inn, Telford.