Once-thriving shopping centre loved in the 90s to be demolished and transformed – as angry locals slam ‘waste of money’
A ONCE-thriving shopping centre is now facing demolition and a major transformation — with angry locals blasting it as a “waste of money.”
The crumbling remains of Nottingham’s Broadmarsh shopping centre are finally set to be ripped down, sparking a fierce backlash from locals.
Once a bustling hotspot in the 90s, Broadmarsh has stood abandoned since 2020 when its former operator, Intu, collapsed into administration.
Now, years of decay could soon come to an end.
Homes England, the government agency tasked with boosting affordable housing, has snapped up the site and submitted major plans to Nottingham City Council.
They want permission to bulldoze the derelict structure and kickstart a huge redevelopment project in the heart of the city.
The £650 million revamp promises 1,000 new homes, 20,000 square metres of retail, office, and community space, and around 2,000 full-time jobs once finished.
But not everyone’s impressed.
Furious locals have blasted the project as a “waste of money” and say the city has already spent too long stuck with a half-finished mess.
Demolition would happen in two stages — first stripping down the haunting steel frame still looming over the city centre, then tearing up the concrete slab underneath it.
Before the bulldozers move in, specialist crews will have to safely strip out hazardous materials, including asbestos hidden inside the abandoned structure.
Planning officials are expected to make a decision on the demolition application by May 13, according to Nottingham City Council’s website.
However, actual construction work on new homes and shops isn’t expected to start until 2029 — leaving the area a building site for years to come.
Broadmarsh is now one of the biggest vacant city centre sites anywhere in the UK, a far cry from its heyday when it was packed with shoppers every weekend.
Nottingham City Council had already cleared parts of the site, building a shiny new bus station, car park, and improving paths, alongside the creation of a new “Green Heart” park.
But financial struggles meant the council had to sell the remaining site to Homes England earlier this year.
As part of the wider plans, the council confirmed that the ugly NCP car park and the former Nottingham College building on Maid Marian Way will also be flattened.
Meanwhile, a nearby project on Lister Gate is also underway.
Shops that once housed Claire’s Accessories, Mountain Warehouse, and Holland & Barrett are being transformed into a new NHS Community Diagnostic Centre.
The centre aims to cut hospital waiting lists by offering MRI, CT, X-ray, and ultrasound scans – although its opening has already been delayed to 2026.
Many locals have been left wondering if Broadmarsh’s long-running saga will finally be brought to an end — or if the city will be stuck in limbo for even longer.
Why are retailers closing shops?
EMPTY shops have become an eyesore on many British high streets and are often symbolic of a town centre’s decline
The Sun’s business editor Ashley Armstrong explains why so many retailers are shutting their doors.
In many cases, retailers are shutting stores because they are no longer the money-makers they once were because of the rise of online shopping.
Falling store sales and rising staff costs have made it even more expensive for shops to stay open.
The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury’s hike to employer NICs from April 2025, will cost the retail sector £2.3billion.
At the same time, the minimum wage will rise to £12.21 an hour from April, and the minimum wage for people aged 18-20 will rise to £10 an hour, an increase of £1.40.
In some cases, retailers are shutting a store and reopening a new shop at the other end of a high street to reflect how a town has changed.
The problem is that when a big shop closes, footfall falls across the local high street, which puts more shops at risk of closing.
Retail parks are increasingly popular with shoppers, who want to be able to get easy, free parking at a time when local councils have hiked parking charges in towns.
Many retailers including Next and Marks & Spencer have been shutting stores on the high street and taking bigger stores in better-performing retail parks instead.
In some cases, stores have been shut when a retailer goes bust, as in the case of Carpetright, Debenhams, Dorothy Perkins, Paperchase, Ted Baker, The Body Shop, Topshop and Wilko to name a few.
What’s increasingly common is when a chain goes bust a rival retailer or private equity firm snaps up the intellectual property rights so they can own the brand and sell it online.
They may go on to open a handful of stores if there is customer demand, but there are rarely ever as many stores or in the same places.
The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) has warned that around 17,350 retail sites are expected to shut down this year.