Construction of new Shrewsbury retail park on site of former pitch and putt golf course set to begin
Construction of a new retail park on the site of a former council-owned golf course in Shrewsbury will get under way next month.
Work on building the new shopping park, set to include shop units, a gym, drive-through coffee shops and restaurants, will start at the beginning of September, Shropshire Council has confirmed.
Planning permission for the new retail development, which will be built on the site of the former pitch and putt golf course in Meole Brace, was awarded last month, but with a strict condition that a new access road be constructed first, in order to allay residents' concerns over traffic.
A scheme of overnight one-way closures will be in place on Hazledine Way from September 1 to 19, and from September 29 to November 8, while utilities are diverted on the site.
Changes to the road network around Hazledine Way, including the new access road alongside street widening and lighting works, will get under way shortly afterwards.
So far, Starbucks, KFC and Indigo Sun have signed up to the scheme, with two further units under offer and only two units still available for interested businesses, the council says.
A 66-bedroom residential care home is planned for the eastern half of the site.
Construction work on the development, set to be carried out by Shrewsbury firm Morris Property, will last 12 months, after which tenants businesses will complete fit-outs of their units before opening for trade in late 2026.
"I’m pleased that work is about to begin on the development of this site," said Roger Evans, Shropshire Council’s cabinet member for finance.
"Once completed we’re confident that the site will be popular and well used and help to benefit the local economy – as well as raising additional income for Shropshire Council."
Shropshire Council put the four-acre site up for sale in 2018 after the closure of the golf course due to declining user numbers, which the council said fell from a peak of 2,590 visits in 2011 to below 1,600 in the course's final year of operation in 2017.
Planning permission for an earlier scheme was granted in 2023 for the land, which lies near Shrewsbury Town's football stadium between Hazledine Way and Oteley Road, having first been proposed in 2019.
A scaled-back development was then approved in December last year, brought forward by different developers, with the shopping complex reduced from two floors to one and around 15 bedrooms reduced from the overall size of the care home element of the proposals.
Work on the new scheme will get underway on December 1.
