A LEADING councillor has revealed that talks are underway on the future of Dunstable’s key Quadrant shopping centre.
Central Bedfordshire Council has ambitious plans for the development of Dunstable involving the wholescale redevelopment of the Quadrant and surrounding area.
“The Quadrant is outdated and needs knocking down,” said Councillor Nigel Young at a breakfast networking meeting in the town today (Monday).
He said that the centre, already home to national names like Boots and Costa Coffee, needed to have bigger units to attract more names.
“We are talking to three developers about the future of the area,” said Mr Young, who is responsible for economic regeneration at the district council.
Speaking to an audience of around 20 businesspeople at the Four Kings Bar, in High Street South, he said the total value of the centre had dropped over the years and he hoped this would bring the owners, Glanmore Property Fund, to the table to do a deal.
Mr Young said the council hoped to put the centre into a land package worth £13million that would include the Dorchester Close area to make it attractive to developers.
The council’s vision is to see Wilkinson’s move from the Ashton Square area into the Quadrant and to put the focus on smaller, independent retailers.
The economic driving force for the regeneration of the town is the Luton-Dunstable Guided Busway, which some have dubbed the ‘misguided busway’.
Mr Young said the scheme is modelled on a similar busway in Cambridge which has already boosted the economy of St Ives. Mr Young believes the busway will bring people into Dunstable, not take them from the town into Luton.
There are, in addition, plans to ban lorries from the A5 and to take away traffic lights in a massively re-engineered town centre when the A5-M1 link road is built in 2014. One such “shared space” scheme is to be built in Court Drive, starting in June. It will not have pavements and the speed limit will be 20mph.
And within the next few months Mr Young said there will be a freight ban in lorries using Poynters Road.
Mr Young believes the assumption in government is that the roadway will be built. “We talk to the Highways Agency on an almost daily basis,” he said.
Mr Young said: “Dunstable will become a very, very desirable location to live because you will be able to get to London in one hour by using a through ticket on the busway.”
> Mr Young will be speaking on the subject of Dunstable the Vision of a Better Future, at Henry’s Restaurant, The Old Place Lodge Hotel, in Church Street, on Thursday, May 3.
The event has been organised by Bedfordshire Chamber of Commerce to inform local businesses of Central Bedfordshire Council’s plans to improve the Dunstable, Woodside, White Lion and Houghton Regis areas, to increase business opportunities and create a desirable environment for the wider community,
Contact Bedfordshire Chamber of Commerce, in Kimpton Road, Luton, for details.