New Robin Hood Chase plans given thumbs-up by local councillors

Updated All of remaining shops on the Chase are to close within 14 weeks

New plans to regenerate the Robin Hood Chase shopping precinct in St Ann’s, came a step closer last Wednesday as local councillors had the chance to see them at a special private viewing in the Chase neighbourhood centre.

Afterwards a reliable source who attended the meeting said that the plans were excellent and would make the Chase fit for the 22nd century.

The new plans are essentially unchanged from those described last November, and shown in part at a public consultation meeting by project managers Alan Parker & Gill Callingham.

The above image shows one of the blocks of shops with maisonettes
above due to be demolished later this year.

There will be a new large supermarket fronting St Ann’s Well Road, and up to four new shop units with their frontages facing the new St Ann’s Valley Centre. These are to be constructed on the land now occupied by the former Health Centre. Above these commercial units will be sheltered homes for the elderly.

The small Chase car park will remain, then in place of the commercial block of shops currently occupied by the Co-op chemist and general store, there will be a small number of social houses.

Livingstone Street will end at this point, and will not be a through Road linking up to Aster Road nearby..

The commercial block of shops at the rear of the wooden Neighbourhood Centre will be demolished to make way for a community open space, which will extend over the area of the present Livingstone Street, to a point adjacent the rear of the houses in Beverly Square.

The Chase Neighbourhood Centre will remain where it is, while the public open space above the community centre, will be developed with up to 18 new homes nicely spaced. The present retail units that once housed St Ann’s Library & former Co-op, along with the current block of open shops, will be demolished to make way for the new houses.

Aster Road will be extended to run down, and around into the heart of the houses to end at the site of the present Chase mosaic, which is surrounded by benches. This is to enable off road parking areas for the new properties.

St Ann’s Post Office is to close down on the Robin Hood Chase in late summer, and will relocate into the large convenience store in lower Bartholomew's Road. While the Co-op Chemist has been awarded the new NHS contract to occupy a new unit inside the main entrance of the nearby St Ann’s Valley centre, which will open in the autumn.

A date for the next public consultation event is yet to be arranged, however, I have been informed this will be in the second week of May; while a planning application for the Chase Regeneration Scheme will be submitted in July.

By Richard Pearson