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Shopping centres are still at the heart of local communities. Sure, before online shopping took over they were bustling with life, full of teenagers, families, the elderly – the lot – but nowadays they remain treasured community spaces, even if a few are a little worse for wear.
In Lewisham, the shopping centre is set to get a 21st century revamp complete with outdoor food market and space for music, socialising, and culture. Plans to give the disused parts of the mall new life have been designed by London architects IF_DO, and involve demolishing the old Argos unit in the southern end of the building to make room for the new.
This is part of a wider plan to breathe new life into Lewisham, which is set to get some TLC later this year – you can learn more about that on Time Out here. Developers want to put a garden ‘the size of a football pitch’ on the shopping centre’s roof, create an entirely new high street, and build 1,700 new homes. Lofty ambitions.
If planning permission is granted this project could begin before the end of the year, which would be a speedy turnaround. According to the developers: ‘We know from our engagement with the community that there is widespread excitement about what our plans… mean for the borough.
‘We hope it will play a vital role in revitalising the town centre, creating new choices and experiences for all.’
Hopefully they’ll succeed in their goal of creating, ‘a dynamic new public space dedicated to food and music,’ and hopefully it will only serve to revitalise the former social heart of the town. They’re just about to request permission, so for now we’ll just have to wait and see.
Did you see that south London will be massively disrupted by train station closures this Halloween and half term?
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