The owners of a Newcastle shopping centre claim they have been “abandoned” by the city council in its bid to drive business toward the adjacent intu-owned Eldon Square complex — in which the authority has shares.
The Intu owned Eldon Square shopping centre
The London-based Peer Group acquired the smaller Eldon Garden shopping centre in 2004 and, according to its website, “transformed what was a secondary shopping centre into an up market location with aspirational brands and life style boutiques”.
But hit by a wave of business failures and rising vacancies, the Eldon Garden owner is now alleging the council is trying to force it out of business. To support its claim the Peer Group is citing two long-standing wrangles. Managing director Howard Dawson says the authority has refused to provide even basic traffic signs to make it easier for shoppers to find the centre.
“The Eldon Garden car park was built as a shopper’s car park but by ‘mismanagement’ it had become in effect a commuter car park with £5 all day parking in response to the reduced take up by shoppers,” he adds. “The council needs to think of this centre as an important part of the retail mix in Newcastle and work with us to get new customers here or see the situation get worse.”
Dawson said his company had even offered to pay £50,000 towards changing the road layout, but had so far received no response. He is even hinting at a more sinister motive behind the council’s behaviour. “We want the council to do what they were meant to do when we came in and work with us to help grow this niche shopping centre. They are instead taking actions that will run us out of town. They want to close Eldon Gardens and pick it up on the cheap.”
A city council spokesman said the Peer Group had always been as well supported as any other shopping company in Newcastle. “With our partners we are doing everything that we can to support retail development in the whole of the city centre,” he said.
“It’s simply not true that we are running this centre down. In our role as the local authority for planning, highways and traffic we must ensure that traffic flows freely and that adequate parking facilities are maintained. The measures we have taken in respect of the Eldon Garden car park were designed to achieve these aims.”
Eldon Garden is situated in the centre of Newcastle, adjacent to John Lewis and interlinked with the recently rebranded intu Eldon Square, which is currently undergoing a £22m refurbishment. It has three floors with retail tenants including The Sony Centre, Pandora and Verb.
One chain which announced this month that it was quitting Eldon Garden for a 4,400sq ft store just yards away in Eldon Square is the family-owned business Lakeland. “As we continue to expand the brand and store network, picking the best location for our stores is key,” said Bob Granger, Lakeland’s finance and retail director. “As the prime location for retail in Newcastle, intu Eldon Square was the obvious choice.”
