Wigan town centre food hall and flats approved
Major changes are afoot on two key Wigan town centre streets with a food hall and dozens of homes approved and more flats in the offing for a landmark building.
Planning permission has been approved for the former Evolution bar on King Street to undergo a major transformation, with the ground floor turned into a Mackie Mayor-type food hall and the upper storeys into 36 apartments.
The plan from Patrick Wilson Architects proposed a single company to manage the ground floor and basement food and drink market, but with a number of businesses operating out of the space served by separate kitchens.
Meanwhile a blueprint has been submitted to Wigan Council to create 26 apartments on the upper floors of the former Wallpaper Supplies building on Library Street, in the process replacing the roof and creating a two-storey extension.
The facades of the existing businesses on the ground floor would be refurbished and four extra commercial units created.
The plans have again been designed by Patrick Wilson Architects which says it has “an emerging reputation for finding bespoke solutions for difficult, often constrained and challenging sites.”
While business units are, happily, occupied by a variety of enterprises on the ground floor, the rest of the building is one of the shabbier premises on one of Wigan’s smartest streets.
Wallpaper Supplies closed much of its business five years ago after more than half a century of trading although it is still selling off stock from its Arcade Street entrance. For the first half of the 20th century much of the building was taken up by Timberlake’s garage and car showroom.
The application is the latest in a number of plans to re-populate the town centre, more as it was 100 years ago before the expanding retail scene pushed housing out into newly-created suburbs.
A large amount of accommodation is part of the redevelopment of the Eckersley Mills site (now known as The Cotton Works) at Wigan Pier, the complex that will eventually replace the Galleries shopping centre will include hundreds of new homes as well as a hotel; and businessman Tony Callaghan has been given planning permission by the council to create 36 more apartments of buildings he owns on Wallgate, including Harry’s Bar which is itself to undergo a major overhaul and revert to its old name of The Clarence Hotel.
Wigan Council leader David Molyneux said: “People have been living in cities again for years but only quite recently have towns cottoned on to welcoming residents back.
"And of course with more people living within walking distance of hospitality, retail, leisure and other other business venues, that greatly improves custom.”
Further up King Street, properties 21 to 25 have received funding under the High Street Heritage Action Zone scheme to allow for the restoration of the historic façade and reinstatement of traditional shopfronts.
Part of the premises have also been internally refurbished (including with a Changing Places toilet facility) to form a Community Hub and Safe Haven for the street and is due to open shortly.
The Evolution project has received funding from the Future High Street Fund and work is expected to begin early in the new year.