Shopping mall set for revamp
A FORGOTTEN shopping mall is about to see colossal investment.
Built in the early 1970s, Mocha Parade, in Salford, lies half a mile from the glitz of Manchester’s top stores such as Selfridges and Harvey Nichols.
Now, after decades of neglect, the Lower Broughton precinct is to see its fortunes change.
Currently home to a diminishing number of shops, it is like a snapshot of much of inner-city Salford in the 80s and 90s.
Earlier this year it was infested by rats.
But supermarket chain Lidl has now committed to building a new store at the site. It will be at the heart of plans for the mall, which will also see a new health centre. The existing downbeat precinct will be bulldozed.
The announcement comes 11 years after the council pledged there would be a ‘comprehensive re-development’ of Mocha Parade with plans to knock down Broughton swimming baths and open a new recreation centre on the site, ‘anchored by a small supermarket’.
In 2014, Salford council produced a report on the mall.
By then only 13 shops were still trading in it, out of 23 units.
Then in the Boxing Day floods of 2015 many of the traders lost stock as the precinct lies close to the River Irwell.
Mocha Parade has seen the Post Office, chippie, butchers, hairdressers, Kwik Save supermarket, and taxi company shut in recent years. Just eight businesses remain, plus a highlyregarded GP practice.
The few remaining tenants will be given a choice of staying and taking up a new unit or accepting financial compensation.