00:00But I think it's important to understand the amount of investment that's going into Walsall
00:05and what we believe to be a transformation of the retail sector, which is on its knees.
00:11The retail sector across the country is certainly something of the past.
00:17What we've got to do is reinvent our town centre.
00:20And hopefully, we used to have a saying, as I still use it,
00:24where Walsall go and others follow.
00:26And as a general, we are determined to reinvigorate the Walsall town centre
00:31and other town centres in whatever capacity we can.
00:36To do that, we have to bring foot forward into the town
00:39and in certain cases, residential properties into the town.
00:43People who live in the town centres, they will use the facilities that those town centres offer.
00:48So what we've got here is a fly-through of what we are currently looking at.
00:53So obviously, we've got a bit of ÂŁ1.5 million rather than moving investment.
00:59We're making it also a destination of choice.
01:02Because what we've got to do in the town centre specifically
01:06is we've got to change the reason for people coming into the town centre
01:10so people who want to come into the town centre for retail.
01:13As part of the connected gateways, we will be doing some demolitions in the town centre
01:18to improve the connectivity between Walsall bus station
01:22and effectively the town centre, Park Street and the retail centre.
01:28As well as the investment into the satellite centre
01:32to make it more of a destination and a concourse for the railway station
01:37so people know where they arrive in Walsall bus station
01:40so people know where they arrive in Walsall via train.
01:42They'll know exactly where they are.
01:44Is this the plan to work?
01:47And this is how the southern centre will look once we've done this investment.
01:56The bottom corner is how it looks now.
02:02So as you can see we've got a double height there now
02:05with lots of natural lighting with a direct link
02:10and a very visual representation as to where the transportation will be.
02:16New shop frontages to encourage their investment
02:20and then a new seating area there where there will be TVs on the walls
02:27and people know what's going on the walls
02:29and what's going on in the world
02:31while they're writing for their train
02:34in order to make their connections
02:36or get home or get to work or other leisure opportunities.
02:41But as you can see from the bottom corner there will be some incredible changes there.
02:50And it's a really ambitious program in order to work really well in Walsall
02:56and punch a mother's white in many ways.
03:00If you can send just as we need a quick and I'm going to be
03:07and you'll be able to see a quick artist impression
03:10of how the public square will look, the plaza will look across the map.
03:19You can see through to the bus station just as it doesn't fix your face.
03:22Yeah.
03:23So Art Gallery Square we're investing in new public realm
03:31and there will be a water feature as you can see
03:34to try and make it more of a destination for people to come to,
03:37for people to stop.
03:39Inside the Art Gallery they might want to take a call,
03:44having lunch or anything like that.
03:46But that again shows our commitment in terms of changing the environment in Walsall
03:50to attract people and investment into the town centre.
03:56Because I think what we've got to do as a local authority is,
03:59you know, put our money, it's not the cash off money, tax payers money,
04:04but put our money away and show people that we've got confidence in our town
04:10which will then generate confidence out there in the private sector to come into Walsall.
04:16And as you can see that's the top of Park Street.
04:18So the new public realm will come right away from galleries where,
04:22right away from Park Street to the Sadler Centre.
04:28And that too represents a multi-million pound investment
04:31and confidence boost in the town centre.
04:36That's our new bridge across the, not the Mersey, across the Cut canal,
04:44in order to link all that residential space into the leisure space that's on the waterfront,
04:54and the radar space on Crayon Wharf.
04:58We've worked very, very closely with, kind of, Pallon Ripper's Trust on that.
05:04This is going to be our Creative Industries Enterprise Centre,
05:07and that's a new thing for Walsall really in terms of really pushing that to the forefront.
05:11It's been very embryonic over the last few years,
05:15but working with Urban Hacks and others,
05:17we're trying to get universities involved in this project
05:21and become a tenny universities rather than a university tenny.
05:25Walsall will never have its own universities happen,
05:29but hopefully we can get all the universities involved in our creative industries.
05:33And that's pretty self-explanatory as well.
05:37We're working across the borough, as you know,
05:39we've achieved a compulsive purchase in Willingham
05:41to remove the building that have been developed for many decades.
05:48Again, you look at other town centres,
05:51and they've got that catalyst of, I'll reiterate, sorry not,
05:57you've got the Apple Store, you've got Julie Lewis.
06:00So they attract big people and thought,
06:03well, we haven't got that, so we've got to create that.
06:06Reinventing the town centre is exactly what we're doing here.
06:10The water feature there, funnily enough,
06:12is very similar to Fethiye in Turkey,
06:15where people sit outside on the side of that water feature
06:18and have a cup of tea and something to eat,
06:21and that's what we want.
06:22We want people to come into the town centre
06:24and feel they want to stay there.
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