Multi-storey eyesore car park to go
An eyesore multi-storey car park in Stafford town centre will be demolished early in the new year, it was revealed today.
The former Tesco multi-storey in Bridge Street has been closed since 2009 and there have been calls ever since for it to be brought back into use or knocked down.
Council bosses revealed that once it is demolished in early 2013, work on a new Marks & Spencer and 1,000-space replacement car park will begin immediately on the same site.
Stafford MP Jeremy Lefroy said: "It has become a blight on the town. It will be good for this to be finally taken down."
Today's announcement marks the first phase of a £70 million retail scheme that will create 600 jobs. The Riverside project, carried out by LXB Properties, will be split into two phases to ensure valuable car parking is not lost while work is carried out. It is hoped the entire scheme will be up and running before the end of 2014.
The new Marks & Spencer will sit on the former Riverside Recreation Centre site, incorporating the Bridge Street car park land. The existing M&S in Gaolgate Street will close as a result.
Redeveloped
The second phase – construction of a Morrisons supermarket in the North Walls area – will not begin until work on the new car park and M&S is finished. Only then will the North Walls clinic be redeveloped to make way for the new supermarket.
Staffordshire and Stoke Community Trust, which is based at the clinic, will move to a floor of the Civic Centre as an alternative. Stafford Borough Council this week backed the move and agreed to provide £950,000 needed to convert the floor for medical use. Councillors were told this sum would be paid back to the authority as part of an agreed long-term lease.
Council leader Councillor Michael Heenan said: "The work in North Walls will not start until the first phase of the work has been finished."
