Contract for town centre development has finally been signed

It is understood the long delayed £150millon Town Centre East development contract with GenR8 has now been signed by the Council. Asked to confirm this, the Council said: "We are planning to issue a media release about this on Wednesday."

The plans for around 300,000 square feet of mixed shopping and leisure uses, scheduled for opening around 2023, was criticised by one of the UK’s leading retail turnaround specialists who warned Rochdale Council that it should not be looking at building more retail space to regenerate the town centre.

Bill Grimsey, who has previously turned around retail businesses such as Wickes, and Iceland, as well as managing store groups in South Africa and Hong Kong, poured cold water on the Council’s proposed £150m retail development. “The last thing Rochdale needs now is more retail space,” he said, after being given a tour of the town by Rochdale’s MP Simon Danczuk.

However, it is understood that the Council is now reconsidering its previous stance of a retail led development and the development will now we centred on leisure use with a small retail offer.

The negotiations with the owners of the Wheatsheaf Shopping Centre, which has been in administration since August 2011, regarding the Council buying out of a 99 lease for the former council library located in the shopping centre, which was previously cited as a reason for the delay in signing the contract with GenR8, are still clouded in mystery.

Asked to confirm that the Council had been advised by a surveyor commissioned by the council that the surrender cost for the lease on the former library in the Wheatsheaf Centre is valued at between £500,000 and £1million, a council spokesperson said: "This information is commercially sensitive and we will not be disclosing any information until negotiations are complete."

Until an agreement is reached, the council will be forced to continue paying the yearly service charge and rates for the now empty space.

Asked what these are, the Council again refused to divulge the information due to the information being "commercially sensitive".