TREES TAKE OVER SHOPPING SPOT

THERE’S still time to enjoy a giant day out thanks to a summer holiday spectacular at The Lexicon.

The Bracknell-based shopping centre has launched Bracknell Forest Giants – three ginormous interactive exhibits aimed at celebrating what gives our neighbour its name: trees.

Running through to August Bank Holiday, Monday, August 30, there will be special events every day, including storytelling, theatres, street entertainment and roaming trees.

The centrepiece is the three giant sculptures, offering different takes on the natural world, and interactive in their own way.

Outside Bill’s restaurant is Wise Woodland, a 6.5m sculpture that is the guardian of the forest’s history.

Close to Marks & Spencer is Lady Greenwood, The Lexicon’s Mother Earth, looking after the smallest insect to the largest tree.

The third giant is Little Acorn, located above The Entertainer, a young sapling, who organisers say encourages forest adventures.

While the giant trees roam through The Lexicon, it’s possible for visitors to turn themselves into virtual tree giants using QR codes.

And it’s possible to buy tickets for a storytelling show at The Forest Friends Den, hosted by Old Brack the Badger and Bright-Tail the Fox.

Visitors can also follow a giant footsteps trail, created by the community. Entries could win a giant prize, in the form of a £1,000 Forest Holiday gift voucher.

At the unveiling last week,

Timothy Wheadon, chief executive at Bracknell Forest Council, said the team were feeling good about their achievement.

“This is the culmination of a lot of hard work over many months by a lot of people,” he said. “There’s a sense of sense of pride in what we’ve achieved. There is also a sense of ambition for what we want to achieve in the future.”

Mr Wheadon had enjoyed walking around The Lexicon and seeing visitors interact with the trees and the entertainers, praising the festival atmosphere.

“That’s what we wanted with the performers, the giants and the storytellers.”

This autumn sees the fourth anniversary of The Lexicon, but for much of the past 18 months it has

not been the town centre that people had been used to. Mr Wheadon feels that the Bracknell Forest Giants is a chance to restate the vision for the centre, which is a mixture of shopping, dining and leisure activities.

“2017 was a fantastic start, but it’s not the end of the project,” he said.

“We’re no different from the challenges the world has faced in the past 18 months, but this is our opportunity to reinvigorate the town, reenergise it, and welcome people with a real attraction, an attraction with scale and ambition that people will want to come from the surrounding areas to participate in.

“People from everywhere, particularly Wokingham, will be welcome to come.”