The Brunel Centre was once a thriving retail destination, attracting shoppers from far and wide.
“It was incredible,” says town councillor Keith Ely, who remembers its opening in Bletchley, Buckinghamshire, in 1973.
Back then, centre:MK, a large destination shopping centre four miles away in Milton Keynes, did not exist, and the Brunel was quite the draw.
Now, like many other medium-sized shopping centres, it is struggling.
Vacant units and graffiti-daubed shutters dominate, and it has just one store left.
That remaining shop, a Boots Opticians, is set to close later this month ahead of the centre’s planned demolition next year.
But Ely, 87, is not upset to see the Brunel make way for flats and a health centre, with only some retail space.
“It is a sad old building, isn’t it?” he says. “There is no nostalgia from me.”
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Image source, Milton Keynes Living Archive
Image caption, Before the Brunel Shopping Centre was built in the 1970s, people in Bletchley would travel to Aylesbury or Bedford to shop
Slide 1 of 4, This is a grainy 1970s photo showing a large angular black shopping centre and some small newly planted trees. In the foreground is a largely full car park and a nadult pushing a trolley while two children walk alongside. , Before the Brunel Shopping Centre was built in the 1970s, people in Bletchley would travel to Aylesbury or Bedford to shop
But there are other options rather than just tearing a centre down.
Market Walk in Northampton is to become a leisure and entertainment space.
“Other shopping centres have a really important purpose as a community hub,” says Somerfield, outlining another potential use.
This is what management are trying to achieve at another site that opened in the 1970s: Weston Favell, on the eastern edge of Northampton.
Footfall – the number of customers entering the building – has increased every year since the pandemic, says centre manager Kevin Legg.
“We are still relevant today,” he says.
“Other shopping centres are trying to emulate and create what we’ve got.”
What they have got is a mix of a large supermarket, a number of big national brands and smaller independent businesses, as well as other community facilities.
Not far from the library inside the centre is a church. It is currently being used by Silhouette Youth Theatre, a charity that aims to make the arts more accessible.
Next year it plans to create a 250-seat theatre inside part of a former Wilko store.
