BRACKNELL TOWN CENTRE PLANS HIT THE BUFFERS

10.18.14am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 28th Sep 2009

Council leader confirms regeneration programme has collapsed

Cllr Paul Bettison, Leader of Bracknell Forest Borough Council, has finally admitted that the proposed new shopping centre in Bracknell will not go ahead, as planned.

Following years of prevarication and delay Cllr Bettison, who was seeking election as Bracknell's next MP, has said any such development must be demand led. In effect this means that the town centre regeneration programme will only proceed on a piecemeal basis and when circumstances permit.

The regeneration programme has always been at the mercy of the town centre's landlords but the Council's admission that it will no longer go ahead as originally planned raises serious doubts about whether the original proposals will ever be implemented. Little has therefore come of years of planning and residents will feel cheated that once again hopes of a better shopping centre have been cruelly dashed.

Ray Earwicker, Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Bracknell said 'Cllr Bettison must have recognised that the game was up and he could no longer pull the wool over peoples' eyes. The deception had gone on long enough and it was now self-evident that the landlords could no longer afford the investment that was needed.

The council had spent millions of pounds of taxpayers' money on the project and still the residents of Bracknell would be without the shopping centre they deserved. Had all the parties involved opted for a less ambitious redevelopment programme years ago, the situation might have been very different. Coupled with all the other failed initiatives and costs which Cllr Bettison and the Conservatives had inflicted on the local community since 1997, it was hardly surprising that he had apparently failed to make the short list to be their candidate at the next General Election.'