Shropshire Star

Buying two shopping centres seems impossible to justify

I was horrified to read about Shropshire Council’s decision to purchase the Darwin and Pride Hill Centres and buy the lease on the Riverside.

Published
The Darwin Shopping Centre

While the areas of both centres adjacent to the town centre have prospered, the lower storeys have always failed to attract the necessary footfall to make them viable.

Since the existing tenants, particularly the supermarket, left the Riverside the remaining shops are hardly likely to inspire. Anybody who follows the reports of the major retailers knows increasingly their traffic has moved online.

John Lewis, one of the first to establish an internet presence, is reducing store openings. Both Debenhams and Primark were mooted as potential for the Riverside. Primark moved into the Darwin Centre.

Obviously both realised a store on the outskirts of the main area was not viable.

The fact is that while the centre is thriving the shops on the periphery struggle.

This is not peculiar to Shrewsbury and many towns do far worse. In an era of cut budgets, which decimate local services, this seems impossible to justify.

Increasingly high business rates are already discouraging shop owners.

The swimming pool will need large capital expenditure. One can only ask who is to benefit from this – not Shrewsbury. We will be left with a highly expensive white elephant which will soak up money on maintenance apart from the potential costs of developing the site.

Shopping is changing and at an exponential rate. This is a fact of life. The era of the large shopping mall outside of the major conurbations is no longer viable.

Traffic and logistics and simply the number of available shoppers argue against such a plan. The centre’s problems belong to their owners and I suspect The Riverside could be better used for social housing but that is another matter.

Expensive advice seems to always suggest expensive solutions mainly it would seem to the benefit of those involved.

The excuse that ‘commercial confidentiality’ prevents any figures being released can only lend weight to the suspicion of yet another bad decision being made behind closed doors. Not for the first time unfortunately. Or that the Councillors don’t know what they are doing.

Hugh Cutler, Shrewsbury