Cinema, Restaurants and Retail £12 million investment planned at Yate Shopping Centre

Consultation will start this month on proposals to develop land adjacent to Yate’s Link Road overflow car park.

Dominion Corporate Trustees (DCT), owners of the town’s Shopping Centre, are proposing that the site is developed as a leisure quarter with a cinema, restaurants and new retail units.

Mark Hull, DCT’s Group Property Controller, said: “We have always been aware of the strong feelings to see a cinema in Yate. When we first consulted the public seven years ago, shortly after buying the centre, on the proposals for a new Tesco store and additional retail units in East Walk, the things that topped the public’s wish list then was a new cinema and more high street retail names.

“We have so far secured Marks & Spencer Simply Foods, Sports Direct and Costa Coffee for East Walk, along with strong interest from a national fashion retailer on the final unit, and are now doing our best to deliver a cinema!

“Our aim is to create a nightlife venue for Yate that will rival other nearby centres and save people having to drive out of the town for their entertainment. We are proposing a six screen cinema, six restaurants and food outlets of various sizes, and three new retail outlets. It is a combination that will make the project viable and is attractive to the market. We already have operators interested in taking the majority of the space in the development. 

“We are starting the consultation process this week and it will culminate in a public display in the next few weeks when the full plans will be unveiled.”

Commenting on the announcement, Yate’s Mayor Councillor Martin Monk, said: “This is great news for Yate. I am pleased to see that consultation is starting on plans that could deliver several of the town’s Community Plan issues. It’s also good that a major business like DCT has kept its promise and proposes investing over £12 million in our town centre. I await the plans with interest.”

The proposed development will have easy access to Yate’s new bus station and will see an increase in parking provisions with a total of 360 car parking spaces along with a further 1260 that already exist at the Shopping Centre.

The total investment in the project is well in excess of £12 million. It is expected to create over 150 further jobs in the Centre with as many as another 100 jobs during the construction phase.

Mark Hull: “This latest project will bring our total spend in Yate to over £40 million in the last three years and  we are committed to ensuring that Yate Shopping Centre is a 21^st Century facility that serves the locality and plays a major role in keeping people in the town. This kind of investment is just unheard of during times of recession, but we believe in the longevity of the Shopping Centre and Town as a whole”. 

For further information about developments at Yate Shopping Centre see our development page.