THE NEW face of Wokingham’s town centre is starting to appear after scaffolding surrounding the Peach Place development has come down. However, the council is refusing to confirm how many retailers are in the process of signing up.
Last week, The Wokingham Paper was given a tour of the site, currently being built on land that used to be the Rose Street car park.
When completed, Peach Place will be home to a mixture of retail units and affordable homes for key workers. And Wokingham Borough Council said that the work is in track and it will open by the end of November.
Cllr Philip Mirfin, the executive member for regeneration, said that the council had received a lot of interest from potential retailers, although he said that commercial confidentiality meant that they couldn’t go into any specifics.
He said: “It’s very exciting times for lots of new retail units, cafés and a very good assortment of retailers.
“We’ve had enormous amounts of interest and we are showing people around on a weekly basis.
“I’m pleased to say that with an abundance of interest, which is really exciting, several people are looking at the same units at the same time which is exactly what we’d expected because at the end of the day what we have want is our market town back.
“We want to have independent retailers, we want to have good nationals coming along and they recognise as much as everybody else does that we are unique: we’re not Bracknell, we’re not Reading, we are a market town like Marlow or Farnham.”
Work on Peach Place started in January last year, with Dawnus Construction demolishing the original 1960s shopping parade, before constructing the new buildings along Peach Street and Rose Street.
Cllr Mirfin added: “I’m really pleased to see how great the new facades look and how it creates a much better backdrop for historic buildings such as the town hall. Looking at Peach Street now, it’s hard to remember just how awful the previous 1960s concrete buildings looked before we demolished them.
“People can see the attention to detail which has gone into the new buildings, such as using a range of brick types to help integrate with the existing streetscape.”
As the end-of-November deadline looms closer, residents will start to see the pavements resurfaces, new shop fronts being installed and the completion of the new buildings and town houses on Rose Street.
Cllr Mirfin added: “I’m looking forward to Christmas this year and I think the abundance of interest that we’re getting I think the public will be as well.
“We’re bucking the national trend.”
