Plymouth City Centre Looks Forward to a Major Overhaul

Despite being one of the more popular destinations in Britain for both holidays and weekend breaks, Plymouth in Devon is planning a major overhaul to keep pace with the nation’s changing shopping habits.  Old Town Street, near Drake Circus Mall, is to be turned into a restaurant quarter, with a major revamp of the “public realm” in the area, Councillor Mark Lowry, the city’s Cabinet member for finance, said yesterday.

Proposals that have rather drifted to revamp the West End are to be rebooted, and some empty shops would be turned into restaurants. It is likely that Frankfort Gate would be reopened to traffic.
With a £7 million refit just about to start on the Theatre Royal, Councillor Lowry set that work was being put in place to link the theatre to the West End.

Plymouth Hoe

 “We are looking at the way pedestrians and traffic interact,” he said. This is likely to include taking down the central railings on Royal Parade. We need our city centre to be vibrant, not only during the day but in the evening.” He said the potential development of a hotel in the Civic Centre building “would go a long way to bringing the city to life”.

“We are pushing forward the Mackay Vision for the city centre. It is still relevant and we need to continue with it. Land owners in the city centre are realising that the return on their investment is insignificant. In future they are just not going to get the return on their investment through retail.”

“The city centre needs to fundamentally change to reflect fundamental changes in the way people shop. Things like pop-up shops will be needed. There will have to be greater provision of leisure, residential and office space.”

But he said this would create a virtuous circle, where more people living or working in the city centre would help some shops to survive. “That is why when we redevelop the Civic Centre we want to keep a majority of council workers in the city centre because they do provide support for retailers.”

He said that a robust defence would be mounted against unwanted out-of-town development.

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