PLANS have been submitted to give the Kirkgate shopping centre a facelift in an effort to boost visitor numbers.

If approved, the plans will see a new entrance costing more than £1 million built at the centre.

Colourful cladding will also be fitted to areas all around the centre exterior and improvements made to some shop fronts.

The £1m entrance will include a two-storey glazed entrance lobby, new escalators, and a new staircase next to the escalators.

The new cladding with cover the parts of the centre which overhang pedestrian and vehicle entrances, along with a brick section on the corner of Kirkgate and Darley Street.

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The cladding is being fitted “at key points of the street-scene to improve its appearance” and “to give the centre more prominence and to provide relief to the scale and form of the existing building”.

The application’s planning statement states: “These applications are all part of the same approach to improve the visitor experience and to sustain levels of footfall in this part of the city centre so that the vitality and viability of the Kirkgate Shopping Centre can be preserved.

“These works are required to ensure that the Kirkgate Centre continues to be operational and relevant in Bradford’s retail environment by making the centre attractive to prospective tenants and to maintain and hopefully increase levels of footfall.”

Multi-coloured translucent plastic panelling is being used for the over-cladding which will be backlit using LED lights, to enhance the appearance of the centre.

Catherine Riley, Kirkgate centre manager, said: “The news of this project comes on the back of a busy first quarter to the year.

“A new entrance of this style is going to further strengthen our place in the city and ensure that Kirkgate Shopping is front and centre when it comes to the Bradford retail map.

“We cannot wait to see the finished article.”

Garreth Keating, a director at Bride Hall Real Estate Partners, a property development company that works with Kirkgate, said: “This project is the first major investment we are implementing from our plans for the centre.

“It underlines the confidence we place in Kirkgate and the regeneration works in Bradford as a whole.

“Our aim is to showcase the centre in its very best light and the new entrance will not only be much more visible, but will also reflect the quality of the interior and retailers we have in place.”

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