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Traders back Summer Row legal bid
Monday 31st March 2008, 11:40AM BST.
Traders in Wolverhampton’s Wulfrun shopping centre today backed a shock decision to make a High Court legal challenge against the planned £300 million Summer Row shopping centre.
Businesses say they are worried about their future due to competition from big names such as Debenhams and access issues. The Express & Star revealed on Saturday that London and Cambridge Properties has launched the legal dispute to halt work on the new development.
The proposed complex will have 85 stores, bars and restaurants and a 10-screen cinema.
London and Cambridge Properties, which is the leaseholder of the Wulfrun, is challenging compulsory purchase orders on 200 shops around Snow Hill, some of which are due to be demolished to make way for Summer Row.
Angie Johns, from Moments gift and card shop, said today: “I don’t think it’ll be a good thing if Summer Row opens. Some shops are struggling here as it is, and we are worried about our jobs.
“There is nothing up our end of the Wulfrun Centre – no fruit and veg store, nothing.”
Raj Hardawa, manager at Estilo clothing store, said: “A big issue is the access to Summer Row from the Wulfrun Centre. If people can’t reach us easily, there is a problem. We don’t want customers to go to them instead of us.”
Councillor Roger Lawrence, leader of the city council, said today: “We will now obviously be having urgent discussions with the Wulfrun Centre leaseholders to see whether this can be resolved. They are shooting themselves in the foot, as the Wulfrun will benefit from this.”
H&M and Debenhams have agreed to be part of the new shopping centre, which was originally expected to open in 2010.
Work was due to start in the autumn but will now be delayed by many months and even halted for good if the High Court ruling goes against the city council.
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I’m not being funny but apart from one or two shops in the Wulfrun Centre most of them are budget shops anyway selling lower quality goods and I really don’t think that people who shop in them will be going to H&M or Debenhams because they won’t pay the prices. If there were better shops in there there would be more footfall heading to them, there are always people at the tills in TK Maxx and Primark so I think you’ll find its what these shops are selling that makes there business struggle. Wolverhampton it rubbish to shop in in comparison to Telford, Merry Hill, Birmingham and even Walsall there isn’t half of choice, it needs a development like this to stop people going out of town to shop and it needs new bars and retaurants to encourage people to use the city more frequently. Being in my 30′s I won’t step foot in the place for an evening out it really isn’t pleasant, it needs some upmarket venus that you can sit in with your friends and actually have conversations without having to shout over the blaring music that you so often hear pumping out of the bars at the moment.
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Can fully understand why someone like L&CP would protest – it will the death knell for the businesses in their properties and the rates they can charge those businesses – however for everyone else – Wolverhampton needs this development desperately. For a town(sorry, city) it must have one of the worst shopping centres in the country – parking is a joke in terms of cost and access, the shops are in need of a major re-furb – you only need to see all the empty and short term let premises to confirm the fact that Wolverhampton is a last resort shopping destination. Get it built and quick – the council shouldn’t even waste toime in dialogue with L&CP – its called “competition”(much needed at that)
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I agree that Wolves needs a drastic makeoever with regards to shopping. The current choice of shops is incomparable to other places around the midlands. However, if you look around both the Mander and Wulfrun Centre you can see that they are struggling to attract and keep businesses so how are hte powers above expecting to fill summer row. Its all good and well to have these amazing shopping ventures but in reality do they really work? Take Bentley Bridge as an example – that was marketed as a major shopping ventrue close to other lesure facilities yet in reality it is little more than a large complex of shops of which only around half of them are full. And we as taxpayers paid for this – is Summer Row going to be as spectacular as they make out???
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The Wulfrun Centre stands to gain more than anyone if the New Summer Row development goes ahead. They will form the route between the two centres. I am reminded of previous antics by the owners (past and present) of this centre…. Remember the silly argument over car park access.
Clearly I would not buy shares in a company with this kind of blinkered vision.
Meanwhile it seems to me that due process has been undergone and those who objected had the chance to pursue this to the very end… Any delay to this project will be catastrophic to Wton. One has, therefore, to wonder at the motives of this company. Who do they represent? Have they a major share in a competing enterprise? That would seem to be the only conceivable motive for a company hell bent on destroying the City Centre which provides them with an income…. despite a very cheap and nasty makeover of a badly designed single story cheaply built precinct.
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Worth remembering, too, that the area now occupied by “Argos” is the site the Wulfrun Centre proprietors promised would be a cinema. Not a good history of delivering on their word have they?
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Isn’t it the case that the interests of the many should come before the interests of a few? This is about the future prosperity of Wolverhampton rather than 200 shops. Unfortunately, that appears to be the stark reality.
Those retailers and businesses that fear the change are often the ones most reluctant to, or have the least ability, to change or innovate. Whilst it’s in no way an enviable position, Cleveland Street and around that area are being having their final death throes for years. It’s a sad terminal decline which won’t get solved by doing nothing or being obstructive to the competition.
Those businesses which offer great customer service, unique products and good prices will survive and would have a great future alongside Summer Row. Case in point, Spice Avenue. I would imagine they would do very well out of Summer Row.
If shops appeal to the lowest common denominator, it drags the ambition level of the population down and the whole place down – part of the reason why Wolverhampton has an image problem. Who wants more pound shops, greasy spoon cafes and bargain basements? The Wulfrun centre clearly does!
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How can people who work in the Wulfrun Centre back this?
The Wulfrun Centre and the Summer Row Development are both completly different, Both the Mander Centre and Wulfrun Centre are now £1 shop heaven! And i’m sorry if thats what we call good retail then Wolverhampton is definatly at the bottom of the pile!
Winner of the worst City Shopping Centre is…
Wolverhampton!
We need this development and this is just delaying somthing that is so badly needed! The Wulfrun Centre are just not attrackting the right kind of Retailer to the city! And the same could be said of the Mander Centre too! Anyone would think the Mander Centre would be the one’s with the problem after all, it’s going to have a section of it knocked down!
The Summer Row development has been on the agenda for sometime now, and it just looks like the few are spoiling it for the many! Even after the amount of money they spent on the Wulfrun Centre, its still a very undessirable shopping centre!
Get over it Wulfrun, you’ll never attrack the type of retailer that Summer Row will!
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If anything, surely the Wulfrun centre would benefit from this as it would be a thru-route from Dudley street to the new Summer Row development. And lets face it, most of the stores in the Wulfrun sell crap. I dont do any of my shopping in Wolverhampton as it simply is a hell-hole at the moment. I would much sooner travel to the Bull ring where choice is better and its a much nicer atmosphere. The Wulfrun Centre owners need to seriously look at the state of their own development and maybe realise that the reason why they are concerned about Summer Row, is because their own centre just doesn’t offer anything other than shabby outfits that people like myself, who travel to the BullRing, would go into!
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Gosh, what snobs we have in Wolverhampton!!!
I for like like Wolverhampton how it is now, yes there are areas that would benefit from a deep clean, especially Broad Street. It is a nice place to shop, ok so we don’t have all the big names, but it is nice to have a day out to Merry Hill or Birmingham, but I would not like Wolverhampton to turn into that type of shopping centre.
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So, sorry to mention this again, but seeing the strengh of feeling in this and the other thread, i yet again suggest a boycott of the Wulfrun Center. The small businesses refered to in the above article are being blinkered, not realising that by restricting choice to Wolverhampton consumers it will not result in people HAVING to shop with them. I suggest a letter writing campaign to the big Wulfrun Businesses (Argos, TK Maxx, Primark) explain to them that due to the business practices of their landlord, we are going to start a boycott of the Wulfrun Center and their businesses. There are plenty of other Argos’s & Primark’s, but i bet if the big businesses feared a boycott they would have the neccesary power to “convince” L&CP to drop the challenge.
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I agree Paul Boycoot the wulfrun. Fanny I suggest that if dont want progress and want to stay stagnant like the city centre’s current situation then you’d better start shopping in Bilston.
There’s plenty wrong with Wolverhampton City Centre. Its fine to have discount shops like Wilko’s and pound shops etc. But we also need quality. Wolverhampton needs to progress not digress. Unfortunately I have to pop into down almost every day, because i work there. But you can get board very easily and quite often I can get round most of the city centre within half an hour!!! If I want quality stuff i have to travel to Birmingham or Merry Hill. Why should I do that when I am living in a city?
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Miss Opinion, you ‘pop into down’? Where’s that then?
Yet again, it’s me, me, me with you and of course your ‘opinion’ is always right isn’t it?
‘Boycoot the wulfrun’ what’s that when it’s at home?
You are offending a lot of people by referring to Bilston in that way.
‘But you can get board very easily’ can I hazard a guess that you meant ‘bored’?
lol you make me laugh, how on earth did you get a job?
I’m sure that your next comment will be full of the usual crap you spout.
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