“never seen footfall so bad…” claims Oakengates publican

Businesses have appealed for help as multi-million pound redevelopment projects have turned Oakengates town centre into a building site.

Town traders agreed that the redevelopment of the Limes Walk area, and having a brand new theatre will ‘eventually be good’ for the town but in the meantime the works are putting people off coming.

Publican John Ellis, from The Crown Inn, was one of the business owners at the meeting.

He said: “It’s going to be lovely when it is finished but how much of the town will still be here when it is done?”

He appealed for members of Oakengates Town Council and Telford & Wrekin Town Council to “get together a strategy for survival for the town.”

Mr Ellis added: “We have had a demolition site for over a year.”

Mr Ellis told the town’s annual assembly on Tuesday, May 6, that he had “never seen footfall so bad and it is getting worse.

“We have had over 12 months of it being a building site and it is set to be a development site for another couple of years.”

He asked the town council “I would like to know what you are going to do to keep the town alive? Please come up with a strategy.”

Mayor Councillor Stephen Reynolds, who is also a borough councillor, said they are “liaising with Telford & Wrekin Council on the development of the area.

“We will do whatever we can.”

The meeting was given an update on the project by the Director of prosperity and investment at Telford & Wrekin Council. He told the meeting that developers are “nearly half way through the project.”

The project, which began in October 2023, will be moving on to the demolition of shops in Limes Walk, in October 2025. This will open up a large area to be used as a public space for events outside the new theatre.

In the meantime he said businesses have been relocated, three market pitches had been agreed.

And the meeting was told that marketing of new retail and housing was due to start soon.

But already there is a “healthy list of new names who want to come into the town”, the meeting was told.

Telford & Wrekin Council is supporting businesses through the Pride in our High Street (PioHS), High street start-up grants of up to £10,000 and trial start-up grants or up to £1,000.

But the meeting was told that a request for signs to advertise the fact that businesses remain open has come to nothing so far.

Councillor Shirley Reynolds, is a town councillor and the Labour borough councillor for Wrockwardine Wood & Trench, said: “We should be able to find somewhere on the ring road for a sign.

“If we could do that it would be really, really helpful.”

The meeting was told that work to strip out The Place theatre was continuing with the removal of asbestos and the moving of an electricity sub-station.

Demolition of part of the theatre is due to start in early June, 2025, with construction starting in September.

A member of the public asked whether all the toilets in the new theatre would be “gender neutral” as a way of reducing queues at women’s lavatories.

She was told that there would be more toilets in the new theatre and they would be labelled ‘ladies’ and ‘gents’’.

Pic: LDRS – This whole section of Limes Walk will be demolished to open up public space in front of The Wakes and the new theatre.