Work begins to prepare Shrewsbury’s Pride Hill Centre for future development

The entrance to the Pride Hill Shopping Centre

Work to prepare Shrewsbury’s Pride Hill Shopping Centre for future development is to start next week (Monday 1 February 2021).

This ‘enabling work’ is a first, vital step in the transformation of the shopping centre and Shrewsbury town centre.

Contractors will start work on site on Monday and will initially focus on stripping out shop fronts and installing hoardings in and around the centre. This will allow essential works to begin whilst allowing any remaining stores to reopen or relocate after the lockdown.

The work is being part-funded by a £5m grant from the Marches Local Enterprise Partnership.

The top level of the Pride Hill Shopping Centre

Earlier this month Shropshire Council announced that Pride Hill Shopping Centre is the preferred option for a new civic centre to house the council and some of its public sector partners from 2023, with councillors set to consider this at a meeting of the full Council on 25 February [2021].

Alongside proposals to develop the new civic centre, it is planned to transform Pride Hill’s top floor for leisure use.

The public toilets in the Pride Hill Centre will now be out of use but customers are able to use the new toilets in the Darwin Shopping Centre. Direct access via the escalators to and from the Pride Hill Centre and Riverside Centre will be closed.

The most direct pedestrian route from Riverside to Pride Hill and the Darwin Centre will be Roushill Bank. Access from Raven Meadows multi-storey car park to the Darwin Centre remains unchanged.

The Pride Hill Centre is set to close as part of the plans to redevelop it and to make the Darwin Centre Shrewsbury’s main shopping centre.

The enabling works in the Pride Hill Centre follow the major refurbishment of the middle level of the Darwin Centre in 2020, which included brand new toilets, a Changing Places facility and a family room. The Collective – a specially created shopping gallery for many independent traders from the Pride Hill Centre – opened in the Darwin Centre last December.

Steve Charmley, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for assets, economic growth and regeneration, said:

“We have always been clear on our intention to repurpose the Pride Hill Centre to create a vibrant and sustainable town of the future. We want to create a quality destination for Shrewsbury’s residents and visitors that is like no other town in the UK. This is a really exciting stage for us to embark on and vital to the town’s transformation. We’re ahead of so many towns in having a genuine vision and plan for the future.”

Mandy Thorn MBE, chair of the Marches LEP, said:

“This is a transformative and innovative scheme which will create jobs, bring new investment into the town centre and help develop a new long-term vision for the heart of Shrewsbury. We are delighted to see that progress on such an important project is getting under way.”