Telford Shopping Centre to be transformed with £200m rebuild

A new bus station, cinema, supermarket, hotel and public spaces will be built in plans unveiled today to bring it into line with the existing £250m Southwater scheme. Work on the redeveloped centre will see 1,000 workers on site with a further 3,000 jobs created once work is completed.

A planning application is expected this summer and work will start as early as next spring, when Asda relocates from the site to its new home on the site of Telford & Wrekin Council's former offices.

The whole development is expected to be completed by 2019.

Bars, cafes, restaurants, shops and hotels are all set to be involved, while the company says it is "investigating opportunities to further improve Telford's cinema offer.

The work will also see parking under what is now Red Oak car park, with a glass-sided staircase leading into a plaza providing a new thoroughfare across Lawn Central and to the centre from the station.

Tomorrow the pension fund owners of the centre will invite people to take part in a major consultation on its future.

Sovereign Land chairman Tim Binnington said: "The shopping centre is currently celebrating its 40th anniversary and, while that's a good opportunity to consider the past, it's also the perfect point to look towards an exciting future."