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  • 2 days ago
We talk to leaders of Walsall Council , Mike Bird and Adrian Andrew, and find out about big things happening in Walsall town centre. Note these are not council wish lists but things that are happening now and in the coming new year with money set aside to do so.
Transcript
00:00But I think it's important to understand the amount of investment that's going into Walsall
00:05and what we believe to be a transformation of the retail sector, which is on its knees.
00:11The retail sector across the country is certainly something of the past.
00:17What we've got to do is reinvent our town centre.
00:20And hopefully, we used to have a saying, as I still use it,
00:24where Walsall go and others follow.
00:26And as a general, we are determined to reinvigorate the Walsall town centre
00:31and other town centres in whatever capacity we can.
00:36To do that, we have to bring foot forward into the town
00:39and in certain cases, residential properties into the town.
00:43People who live in the town centres, they will use the facilities that those town centres offer.
00:48So what we've got here is a fly-through of what we are currently looking at.
00:53So obviously, we've got a bit of £1.5 million rather than moving investment.
00:59We're making it also a destination of choice.
01:02Because what we've got to do in the town centre specifically
01:06is we've got to change the reason for people coming into the town centre
01:10so people who want to come into the town centre for retail.
01:13As part of the connected gateways, we will be doing some demolitions in the town centre
01:18to improve the connectivity between Walsall bus station
01:22and effectively the town centre, Park Street and the retail centre.
01:28As well as the investment into the satellite centre
01:32to make it more of a destination and a concourse for the railway station
01:37so people know where they arrive in Walsall bus station
01:40so people know where they arrive in Walsall via train.
01:42They'll know exactly where they are.
01:44Is this the plan to work?
01:47And this is how the southern centre will look once we've done this investment.
01:56The bottom corner is how it looks now.
02:02So as you can see we've got a double height there now
02:05with lots of natural lighting with a direct link
02:10and a very visual representation as to where the transportation will be.
02:16New shop frontages to encourage their investment
02:20and then a new seating area there where there will be TVs on the walls
02:27and people know what's going on the walls
02:29and what's going on in the world
02:31while they're writing for their train
02:34in order to make their connections
02:36or get home or get to work or other leisure opportunities.
02:41But as you can see from the bottom corner there will be some incredible changes there.
02:50And it's a really ambitious program in order to work really well in Walsall
02:56and punch a mother's white in many ways.
03:00If you can send just as we need a quick and I'm going to be
03:07and you'll be able to see a quick artist impression
03:10of how the public square will look, the plaza will look across the map.
03:19You can see through to the bus station just as it doesn't fix your face.
03:22Yeah.
03:23So Art Gallery Square we're investing in new public realm
03:31and there will be a water feature as you can see
03:34to try and make it more of a destination for people to come to,
03:37for people to stop.
03:39Inside the Art Gallery they might want to take a call,
03:44having lunch or anything like that.
03:46But that again shows our commitment in terms of changing the environment in Walsall
03:50to attract people and investment into the town centre.
03:56Because I think what we've got to do as a local authority is,
03:59you know, put our money, it's not the cash off money, tax payers money,
04:04but put our money away and show people that we've got confidence in our town
04:10which will then generate confidence out there in the private sector to come into Walsall.
04:16And as you can see that's the top of Park Street.
04:18So the new public realm will come right away from galleries where,
04:22right away from Park Street to the Sadler Centre.
04:28And that too represents a multi-million pound investment
04:31and confidence boost in the town centre.
04:36That's our new bridge across the, not the Mersey, across the Cut canal,
04:44in order to link all that residential space into the leisure space that's on the waterfront,
04:54and the radar space on Crayon Wharf.
04:58We've worked very, very closely with, kind of, Pallon Ripper's Trust on that.
05:04This is going to be our Creative Industries Enterprise Centre,
05:07and that's a new thing for Walsall really in terms of really pushing that to the forefront.
05:11It's been very embryonic over the last few years,
05:15but working with Urban Hacks and others,
05:17we're trying to get universities involved in this project
05:21and become a tenny universities rather than a university tenny.
05:25Walsall will never have its own universities happen,
05:29but hopefully we can get all the universities involved in our creative industries.
05:33And that's pretty self-explanatory as well.
05:37We're working across the borough, as you know,
05:39we've achieved a compulsive purchase in Willingham
05:41to remove the building that have been developed for many decades.
05:48Again, you look at other town centres,
05:51and they've got that catalyst of, I'll reiterate, sorry not,
05:57you've got the Apple Store, you've got Julie Lewis.
06:00So they attract big people and thought,
06:03well, we haven't got that, so we've got to create that.
06:06Reinventing the town centre is exactly what we're doing here.
06:10The water feature there, funnily enough,
06:12is very similar to Fethiye in Turkey,
06:15where people sit outside on the side of that water feature
06:18and have a cup of tea and something to eat,
06:21and that's what we want.
06:22We want people to come into the town centre
06:24and feel they want to stay there.

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