Business

This is the first image of what the Rose Street Car Park could look like when it is regenerated
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Traders asked to shape town centre future

By Laura Herbert
February 04, 2013

This stunning image reveals the town planners’ vision for Rose Street car park – and traders are being asked to help shape it further.

It shows a meeting place with open-air café style seating – and to help bring it to life retailers, traders and people living in the area are being urged to join the Town Team and also have their say on how parts of the town centre not undergoing regeneration should look.

The first phase of the town’s multi-million pound regeneration has been given the go-ahead.

But additional work is taking place to focus on the heart of the town.

Wokingham’s newly-formed Town Team aims to give businesses and neighbours a collective voice on how the town centre is managed.

The team is also looking at ways of attracting more people to shop in Wokingham and ideas to improve visitor experience.

Wokingham Borough Council will launch its Public Realm Strategy consultation next month and is calling for people to share their ideas on how public areas in the centre should look.

The Town Team and Public Realm Strategy are both separate from the overall regeneration, but will run alongside the project as it progresses.

The regeneration will see a new foodstore and hotel built in the town centre as well as open spaces and opportunities to extend the market.

Councillor Alistair Corrie, executive member for regeneration and affordable housing, said: “We have known since the adoption of the core strategy in 2010 that we have to deliver more shops and a foodstore in the town so this project has been about addressing how best to integrate this growth into the town centre.

“If the foodstore was to go on a site outside the town centre it would draw people away from the town centre rather than bringing footfall back.

“We already know, both from research and examples in Wokingham, that many people do link trips to a town centre foodstore with other shopping and activities so locating the new store in the centre of town is critical for footfall as well as helping reinforce and extend retail circuits past more of the existing shops.”

Bernie Pich, head of regeneration, added: “We are working carefully designing the scheme to ensure it’s as flexible as possible and we don’t run into the issues found in much of the existing retail space, which is constrained due to the historic fabric of the buildings.

“We have considered the amount of development we are delivering as part of this project to ensure we leave scope for the future and don’t overdevelop the town with these first phases.

“The project only delivers a proportion of the new retail growth required for the town, making sure there is capacity for the rest to be delivered through other redevelopments in the coming years.”

Wokingham is set to grow by more than a third over the next decade.

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@Cllr Baker - good stuff. Maybe that will finally shut me up (on that topic :) )

I correct my last post - it is Lidl, not Aldi. I detest both stores with equal vigour, but that's a separate point entirely.

mavdo, Wokingham
04/02/2013 at 16:42

@DT - More specifically, if putting a Sainsburys in that location will make it more attractive.

Well, I swing two ways on that point. Firstly, it will be in Sainsbury’s best interest to make Wokingham a shopping a destination - the more people they bring in, the more successful they will be. Waitrose has a two-fold success - firstly, they supply one of the best car parks for the town centre, and secondly they currently provide the only true in-town food supermarket (I don't count M&S as a "supermarket" despite attempts to stop selling any clothes and fill their shelves with pre-made luxury salad). But Waitrose isn't for everyone and some abuse the car park it provides.

But Wokingham doesn't contain enough shops to make it a shopping destination. A supermarket doesn't really help that. Some shops in the town will provide services a supermarket could provide and undercut (dry cleaning, key cutting, pharmacy/drug store, newsagents, cards etc). It is also in Sainsbury’s interest to win the business from those places, which will in turn destroy the majority of the town centre.

I recognise the need for an increase in supermarket floor space in any area that has an increase in houses. We’ve had some already with Aldi, but now we'll have Tesco, Aldi, Sainsbury’s (plus Winnersh), Morrisons and Waitrose within about a square mile. We're putting 2000+ houses in Aborfield and Three Mile Cross, where do they shop? There's no supermarket for them for about 10 miles! Why do we need five within a mile of town.

But then remove The Paddocks and Rose Street car parks, and you reduce the number of spaces available. New spaces to Sainsbury’s will be tied to people shopping in the supermarket. That will DECREASE people coming into town if they do NOT want to go to a supermarket.

Wokingham is not sponsored by, or dependant on, Sainsburys (or any chain). It must not be. Ever. Because we'll be held to ransom in some way or another, and the town will fail as a result.

mavdo, Wokingham
04/02/2013 at 16:38

Mavdo - we are currently finalising the Town Centre Parking Strategy which will address the issues you raise on the numbers. The objective is still not to lose any parking spaces and based on the modelling we need to provide the replacement spaces sooner rather than later. In parallel we are looking for funding from several sources now to accelerate the additional spaces provision.

I'm sorry that I cannot provide specifics at the moment as our professionals are still testing out some options. But it will be available soon for public consultations.

Cllr Keith Baker
04/02/2013 at 16:34

Haha hard to believe but that's how I'd put it ;)

I do too. No matter what my views have meant to people in the past, I only want for Wokingham to be the thriving community for both residents and traders which it can be and is so close to being. The great people are already here, fingers crossed the changes to be made put in place an equally great environment to both shop and relax, whilst being sympathetic to some of the existing great buildings and fabric we already have.

alex_f, Wokingham
04/02/2013 at 16:04

A mini Wokingham? I'm struggling to imagine Wokingham smaller than it is! I do love this little town, though. Let's hope that the 1/10th of a billion pounds we're spending on it doesn't make it worse, even if it doesn't make it significantly better.

Damiano_Tommassi, Wokingham
04/02/2013 at 15:51

@Damiano_Tommassi - the best way I would describe Twyford is definitely a mini Wokingham, both in terms of feel and possibly retail mix on a smaller scale. Some great little independents, very few big brands, two main food stores, and some great places to eat. A friendly and pleasant place to shop, with the odd bit of regrettable 60s or 70s architecture. The optimist in me hopes that it is a good indicator for Wokingham. You're probably right it is alot more focused around a single core centre, rather than Wokingham which has (or will have) a number of centres (or quarters, in cool speak!).

Probably the best solution would have been for Tesco to not have moved at all as you've mentioned. Hopefully the new supermarket would be enough to tempt some into town rather than one of the out-of-town foodstores. I actually do believe it will tempt me into town, if I can stop for lunch at Brown Bag whilst doing a spot of shopping. Maybe the southern distributor coming out at Tesco will tempt even less people to leave town!

alex_f, Wokingham
04/02/2013 at 15:19

I would think the same, Alex; that a department store would be detrimental to business. Although I don't think it's ruled out yet...

Interesting that Twyford's doing well. I don't know the area well, but is it perhaps slightly more focussed? By that, I mean that if Twyford's shops are all relatively close to the supermarkets that would give one clear explanation of how business has stayed strong.

The difference with Wokingham, I think, is that if you live on the south/west of town, you can (and probably do) get your shopping done in Tesco and possibly Lidl without getting anywhere close to the town. If you live to the north, you probably find yourself in Winnersh Sainsburys each week - miles from Wokingham. Living in the town centre, I already have plenty of places to buy my food, or Tesco just outside of it. I remain sceptical to the idea that placing a supermarket in the middle of the town will benefit the town - it's far more important to have roads that work, and don't have delivery lorries parked across them or are gridlocked twice a day.

Damiano_Tommassi, Wokingham
04/02/2013 at 14:41

@Damiano_Tommassi - I've to'ed and fro'ed on this one quite alot in the past. In some ways I would have preferred a department store (which to me gives a town centre a more complete retail offering almost overnight - e.g. like Bentalls in Bracknell), but I've seen / heard some convincing arguments and studies if favour of having in-town supermarkets. I also see the point made that a department store might be more harmful to a small town centre for the independents we thrive for (why leave if everything you need is under one roof? - we get this on a grander scale to some extent with the Oracle in Reading).

It is interesting and encouraging though for us in Wokingham to see another article today on Twyford - and how they appear to have attributed some of their resurgence on the supermarkets in town: http://www.getwokingham.co.uk/business/s/2128328_traders_praise_booming_twyford

alex_f, Wokingham
04/02/2013 at 14:28

All fair comment.

Does anyone believe, if I may ask, that putting a supermarket/superstore on Elms Field is going to make Wokingham more attractive to shoppers, bring in more shoppers or more money to the town, or in any other way make Wokingham a shopping destination?

Damiano_Tommassi, Wokingham
04/02/2013 at 14:08

Wokingham doesn't need more shops it needs its current empty shops including those used for art exhibitions brought into use.

In terms of architecture we need the historic buildings in the centre of town to be made more prominent. In particular this means a concentration on the All Saints end of Rose Street and Peach Street.

Start by moving the road opposite the overhangs two metres away from them so that they become a feature with a wide pavement instead of a traffic and pedestrian hazard. The space to do this is already available. This would also improve the access into and from Easthampstead Road.

PoneRana, Wokingham
04/02/2013 at 13:18

Damiano_Tommassi - just a couple of comments on your comment (hoping to remain neutral in this one!):

I believe a foodstore has been identified as being required due to all of the new residents from the SDLs and other pockets of development. Whilst Waitrose and M&S are foodstores within the town centre, it could be argued that they perhaps don't fulfill the weekly shop needs of the average person / family (or certainly their pockets), and for that there is Tesco, which is out of town. Or Sainsburys in Winnersh, again out of town.

You're probably very right that they shouldn't have let Tesco move out all those years ago. I don't know what was going on at that time though...

I'm guessing that Wokingham growing by a third is due to the SDLs and other developments. I'm not sure if this is the town centre or the borough, or both. We'd only need about 2 to 3 thousand new homes to grow Wokingham Town by a third, which is possibly the in-town SDLs with a few more smaller developments like the cricket ground and flats on the Paddocks car park.

alex_f, Wokingham
04/02/2013 at 13:10

What is it with the square trees. They're in every "vision" of Wokingham. Trees DO NOT GROW IN CUBES!!!

Rose Street is current a very useful car park. Yet no one has any plans as to where the spaces lost both here and in the Paddocks will be relocated. We need the space. Building a car park by Coppid Beech will NOT be sufficient to draw people into Wokingham. Cllr Baker has long said that these parking spaces will be replaced, but recently said that there may be a gap between spaces going and more spaces being provided. That gap could mean they never happen, or they happen too far away to be useful. But the very fact they are going to be lost in the first place seems to have been completely and utterly ignored.

mavdo, Wokingham
04/02/2013 at 12:51

I fail to see what is so ‘stunning’ about this image. I see a plain paved area, a tiny piece of greenery, some very silly square trees, a bland red-brick fascia and a couple of parasols. This frankly is not my idea of ‘stunning’!

What is the architectural vision here? How will people view this dull looking square in 10, 50 or even 100 years-time? Classic? Timeless? Or plain and cheap? I sincerely hope the planners are giving the heritage of what they are about to embark upon their upmost consideration. Wokingham is steeped in history, with wonderful buildings and a real sense of the past. Let’s hope they don’t c*ck this up.

Bracknell is about to have a major rebuilding of the town centre. Let’s hope future shoppers choose Wokingham over Bracknell. Based on this uninspiring image I have major doubts

the badger
04/02/2013 at 12:41

Okay.....

"We have known since the adoption of the core strategy in 2010 that we have to deliver more shops and a foodstore in the town..."

--you have to deliver a 'foodstore' because...? This guy's been to Wokingham, right? he know that there are foodstores in Wokingham town centre already (Waitrose, M&S, and smaller independent stores).

"If the foodstore was to go on a site outside the town centre it would draw people away from the town centre... locating the new store in the centre of town is critical for footfall"

--shouldn't have let Tesco move out all those years ago, then, and turned it into Argos/a restaurant.

Also, I remember seeing pictures that were supposed to represent the new Rose Street car park 1-2 years ago that was very different from this one. Another re-think, re-design, and set of payments to external companies perhaps?

How will they replace the car parking spaces that are lost in the various parts of regeneration and, I'm told by another article, the development of park and ride schemes from Wokingham town centre to Reading (which will be great for improving Wokingham's retail sector, won't it?)/

"Wokingham is set to grow by more than a third over the next decade." - in what regard? Some context, please. Average weight? Population? Retail space made available by the regeneration scheme?