The owners of Aycliffe Town Centre are pleased to confirm that following substantial design work on securing the future of the much loved and iconic Town Centre Clock Tower we can now restart the demolition works of Churchill House, which is currently supporting the tower, and the creation of a new access point to the Town Centre from Stephenson Way.
On completion of the demolition works in the summer of 2016, part of the site will be handed over to Durham County Council for a contractor’s compound in order that they might commence the alterations and extension of the Leisure Centre to create a new Library.
All the works are expected to be complete by the end of the year.
Town Centre Trees
Substantial investigatory works have been carried out find out why we were having issues with supporting trees in the mall and this has led us to believe that the water level tables have changed resulting in the tree pits flooding at a level that destroys the tree roots I am now in progress of preparing a report for the owners with recommendations of how to resolve this.
Market
We have spent a lot of time with various market operators to look at the possibility of a market for the centre however each of them has come back with the view that currently the demand is not there and that any market would not be viable and this is supported by national evidence that markets in general are declining.
Bryan Haldane
Town Centre Manager