Give us cafés, shops and a bowling alley, not homes
READERS HAVE THEIR SAY ON WHAT THEY WANT BUILT AT THE STILL EMPTY BARGATES SITE
MOST Burton Mail readers want to see riverside cafés and restaurants built at Bargates rather than homes, a poll has revealed.
Our website created a poll asking readers what they would like to see built on the site, off High Street, Burton, after it was revealed planners from East Staffordshire Borough Council were still thrashing out proposals to build 133 homes.
The plans submitted by Jessup Build Develop attracted controversy when an application was submitted more than two years ago. Some people believe they do not make enough of the site’s prime riverside location.
Top of the poll of what people want to see on Bargates are riverside cafés and restaurants. This option attracted 35 per cent of the total vote. In second place was a mix of places to eat and a shopping centre, which totalled 22 per cent of the vote.
In third place was a bowling alley, with 17 per cent of the vote.
Bargates was once the site of the Riverside Shopping Centre, which included Superbowl 2000.
In fourth place is an entertainment centre, as many people claim the town is lacking places to go since the bowling alley closed. This option gained 16 per cent of the vote.
In joint fifth place with four per cent of the vote were shops and houses.
In joint sixth was a sports facility and a museum, with just one per cent of the vote.
And there was no support for a larger car park on the site. The original shopping centre’s small car park still remains.
Should plans be approved to build 133 homes and a shop on the site, it would be able to sell the site for a multi-million pound figure.
Jessup’s plans were entered in 2016 and, after being locked in talks with the council for much of 2018, amended in January 2019.
The number of houses was reduced from 140 to 133, with the loss of one of the two proposed shops on site.
There was also a reduction in the number of car parking spaces neighbouring council-owned Meadowside Leisure Centre would have to give up.
The centre had originally been set to lose 38 of its 179 spaces.
However, Jessup’s amended planning application would see the leisure centre’s parking provision drop to 145 spaces rather than 141.