MP: City to be new Bullring

Lichfield risks looking like part of the Bullring has been "dumped" on to it when a new £95 million shopping and leisure development is built, the city's MP has warned.

Michael Fabricant is telling developers behind the Birmingham Road scheme that a Brindleyplace-style development would be far more in keeping with the city.

Planning permission has been awarded to the project, which has now been referred to the Secretary of State for the Regions Ruth Kelly, for final approval.

A cinema, hotel, Debenhams department store and 37 shops will be built on a 8.15-acre site between Frog Lane and Birmingham Road, under the plans which will create around 1,500 jobs.

Mr Fabricant said: "A Brindleyplace or Jewellery Quarter-style of development is far more in keeping with the city of Lichfield than some inappropriate concrete space like the Bullring.

"It will either become a scar on the landscape looking like a small part of the Bullring or . . . as I hope, it will be finished tastefully using brick and wood with trees and attractive street furniture and will be an enhancement to the stylish city that Lichfield has become."