£125m shopping centre will take ‘at least 7 years’

A £125m shopping centre redevelopment will take at least seven years, a council boss has revealed.

Wigan council purchased The Galleries, which includes the Makinson Arcade and Marketgate Shopping Centre, in 2018 for £8m.

The council wants to reverse the decline of the 3.2-hectare site, with plans for residential, leisure, food and drink uses, office space and a new market.

A formal procurement process is now under way and the council is expecting to select a development partner to deliver its £125m vision later this year.

But Becca Heron, Director of Economy and Skills, told a scrutiny committee: “I will be frank. We are talking about a redevelopment that will take, I would say, a minimum of seven years.

“Once we’ve got that development partner, then we will have to go through all of the usual stages of planning permission, and there will be consultation throughout that process.”

She added: “The decision to buy The Galleries was made before I started with the council but I think it was absolutely the right decision.

“It’s given us influence and control over essentially what is almost a quarter of the footprint of our town centre.”

Wigan Council is looking to take a similar approach to the regeneration of Leigh town centre by publishing a strategic regeneration framework.

The local authority was due to start a consultation exercise just before lockdown and will be restarting that process as restrictions start to ease.