A retail centre that has been called the worst in Britain has no open shops and will be “recycled” into a business centre after a number of well-known brands left.
After more than 40 businesses left the Festival Park shopping centre, including M&S, Nike, Edinburgh Woollen Mill, Costa, and Gap, customers described it as a “zombie-land” with long lineups of empty storefronts.
There was just one Sports Direct shop remaining when the independent merchants departed, however it has since closed due to the low number of customers.
On the location of the Gwent Ebbw Vale Garden Festival, the centre first opened its doors in 1997.
The National Garden Festivals programme of the government, which saw significant investments from public money on abandoned industrial areas, included the 1992 event.
Visitors could enjoy the funfair, plant displays, gardens, and a cable train while Prince Charles, Dannii Minogue, and Catherine Zeta Jones attended the celebration.
Following the retail center’s establishment, many of the sculptures and other original elements from the 1992 event were left in situ.
Megan Woods, a 59-year-old shopper, said, “It was great then – big lines to get in and a tremendous vibe.”
It even features a talking moving clock and its own fairground. However, with no one there, it now resembles a zombie wasteland.
“Something has gone extremely wrong there, since the taxpayers’ money was completely squandered.” Before the epidemic, everything was growing worse, but now it is absurd.
Locals blamed the fall on the Labour-controlled Blaenau Gwent Council’s lack of planning and investment, while others referred to a lack of private investment.
The retail centre was taken over by privately held real estate investment firm Mercia Real Estate Ltd., the council said last year.
Even though Kim Maguire’s John Jenkins gift shop was one of the first businesses to open there, she relocated it from Festival Park to the main street in the town centre.
I continue to hear from customers on a daily basis about how much they miss Festival Park and how appalled they are at what has happened to it in recent years, she added.
“The closure was a sad day for me as a company and the neighbourhood as a whole.”
Despite the fact that we have since moved to a bigger store closer to the town centre, everyone who worked there misses it as well.
After departing Festival Park more than a year ago, Kelvin Morgan, who once operated a fresh fruit and vegetable business there, said he had been heartbroken to see the area’s downfall.
He remarked, “To see it as it is today is quite depressing since it used to be so lovely over there with all the flower beds and stores.”
I even recall the enthusiasm when it initially opened as the Garden Festival, and you used to see hundreds of people there when it first converted to a retail centre after that.
The facility was purchased by Birmingham-based property developer Mercia Real Estate last year with plans to turn the retail park into a “mixed-use commercial centre.”
‘MRE’s ambition for the mall is to recycle and reuse the existing land and buildings to create a mixed-use commercial centre,’ agents Savills said in a planning application.
The previously established land is currently entirely empty, but with some minor renovations to the buildings and the hard spaces surrounding them, it could house a variety of purposes that would provide jobs.
MRE also hopes to draw customers from a variety of businesses, such as trade counters, tool rental businesses, and builder’s merchants.