£70m centre rebuild stopped by recession

Plans to demolish and rebuild West Bromwich's Queens Square shopping centre in a £70 million revamp have been scrapped.

It is the latest blow after proposals for a hotel and restaurant at a new-look centre were shelved due to the recession. With plans now scaled back even further, the level of proposed investment has been potentially slashed by tens of millions of pounds. The original developer Halladale Group Plc, has already left the project and Sandwell's regeneration chief,

Councillor Bob Badham, admitted new plans have been hit hard by the recession.

Plans to attract 23 new big name shops and create a European style piazza with restaurants and high end apartments in a glass fronted building have been ditched in favour of better air conditioning and improvements to frontages of the 1960s shops.

Councillor Badham said: "Obviously the recession has affected lots of building projects. The improvement work will cost significantly less, but will still amount to millions.

"It will now be upgraded to the standard of the nearby Kings Square shopping centre.

"The original plan was to demolish the centre and rebuild, but that is no longer the case.

"Now we will just be looking at refurbishment.

"The work will include new shop fronts, new air conditioning systems and we could even combine units to make bigger shops if there is a demand for that.

"Once work is completed on the other major development in the town we will see a lot more shoppers in the town."

He continued: "There will be 10,000 students catered for at Sandwell College and the huge office developments will also bring workers into the town to spend money.

"Work is due to start on the upgrade this year and we are expecting it to take more than a year to complete."

The council owns the freehold of Queens Square centre and is now in talks with Nationwide building society, set to be the major funder for the project and the centre's new leaseholder.