News

Canal Corridor: Puplic exhibition announced

Centros, the developer of the Canal Corridor site in Lancaster city centre, has announced a week-long public exhibition of its outline planning application for the site, which has now been submitted to Lancaster City Council.

As part of its on-going public consultation programme, which began in December 2005, the plans for the development will be on show in an exhibition trailer to be situated in Market Square from Saturday 2 June 2007 until Saturday 9 June 2007 (excluding Sunday 3 June). The exhibition will illustrate the principles of the development, the general layout of the buildings and the pedestrian thoroughfares, plus the highways proposals including car and delivery access. While all of the proposed highways improvements will be in detail, the architectural designs for all of the buildings will be prepared after this outline application has been considered and will be part of further consultation in a later stage of the planning process.

The exhibition will be open from 10am - 4.30pm daily and representatives from the development team will be on hand to explain the proposals, answer questions and obtain feedback.

Associate Director of Centros, David Lewis, comments: “This is an important phase for the development; the exhibition will show the outline scheme we’ve now submitted – which is the result of our extensive pre-application consultation with the City Council, the County Council, national consultees such as CABE and English Heritage, key stakeholders, local interest groups and local people. We very much welcome the community’s continuing input and hope that as many people as possible will attend the exhibition and let both the Council and us have their views.”

“The exhibition offers people an excellent opportunity to see and understand how the development will fit into the city and how it will contribute to the regeneration of the city centre.”

Centros has submitted a main ‘hybrid’ outline planning application for the proposed scheme to Lancaster City Council and this is supported by a number of other applications dealing with ancillary elements and issues. These propose the development of:

• A Debenhams department store
• Other new shops (including medium sized, speciality and local shops)
• Cafés and restaurants
• Extensions to the Dukes and Grand theatres
• New premises for the Musicians’ Co-operative
• A new canal side leisure environment
• 150 town houses and apartments (including affordable homes)
• 800 shoppers’ car parking spaces
• New and refurbished premises to relocate existing businesses on the site
• New public open spaces and a park
• Highways improvements

The aim of this vibrant new development is to re-establish the city centre as an exciting shopping destination for residents of northern Lancashire and southern Cumbria, bringing new life and a major boost for the local economy. The scheme would provide places to shop, live, eat and be entertained, in a safe, attractive environment.

David Lewis continues: “While we acknowledge that there are some local objections to the proposals, results from an independent survey by national opinion polling organisation, ICM, have shown overall support for the scheme. There is a clear desire to see a significant improvement in the range of retailers and places to eat in the city centre.”

Key to the success of the development will be the proposed road changes, which will help the city’s traffic to flow better through improvements to the Kingsway gyratory system, reduction of rat-running through Freehold and the provision of an interceptor car park for shoppers arriving on the northern side of the city centre.

The development will provide more than an additional 1,000 jobs, boost the city’s retail fortunes by providing a strong retail attraction to keep Lancaster’s shoppers in the city rather than visiting Preston and other places, and contribute to the tourist economy by increasing the city’s overall attraction.

25th May 2007