'No appetite' for big shops in Wolverhampton city centre, says council leader

Councillor Ian Brookfield said the reason so many big stores had left the city was because "people don't want to use them anymore".

It comes after businessman Henry Carver revealed he was funding a £30,000 independent review to look at ways to revitalise the city.

The Labour-led authority has come under fire over the dire state of the city centre, which is dominated by empty stores and suffers from chronically low footfall.

Bosses have also been accused of putting shops along Victoria Street out of business due to long-running roadworks as part of a controversial pedestrianisation scheme.

Speaking at a council meeting, Councillor Brookfield said: "Wolverhampton, like probably every city north of Watford or large town, or perhaps bits of Birmingham, has suffered through not just the cost of living crisis, but we've had a fundamental change of how we access and use our city and town centres, and that's the people themselves that are making that choice, myself included – no doubt many people here – you do buy more stuff online.

"So it's not for the city council to be buying huge swathes of the city centre when there's no appetite to put another huge department store in its place.

"If there was appetite, it would already be there it would not have gone. You know all these big shops have gone because there's no appetite. People don't want to use them anymore.

"So it's up to us to say 'how can we bring in that investment?' and we can lay the groundwork. We can work hard with planning etc to be able to do that and do that well – because we've seen it in other parts of the city where they've come to fruition, the i9 and i10 are perfect examples of that and then the City Learning Quarter and the Canalside project.

"These are going to hugely regenerate part of our city centre and this is how we will attack it and how we will bring it forward."

A number of city stores have closed down in recent years, including Beatties on Victoria Street and Debenhams in the Mander Centre.

Councillor Brookfield, who was speaking after the launch of the council's latest investment prospectus, added that "rubbishing our city" would be damaging and mean that "people will not come here".

"We're here to do better for our city to make it a place people want to invest, bring jobs and that's our duty and that's what we're doing with this investment prospectus," he added.