LAKESIDE Shopping Centre, has become one of the most popular shopping destinations and is a prominent landmark on the Thurrock skyline.
As the festive shopping season is well underway, the Thurrock Gazette looks back at the work that saw the construction of the site almost twenty years ago.
The shopping centre began, like many major developments do as just arty and sketchy plans, that showed an impressive and modern shopping multiplex.
The site was a former chalk quarry before being transformed into the huge complex that we know and visit in our thousands today.
Pictures show the extensive work carried out at the site, with huge beams, high cranes and even the trademark spiked dome that still stands on the roof of the vast centre.
Work was completed in 1990, and there was a special, exciting official opening with VIP guests and dignitaries such as Princess Alexandra The Honourable Lady Ogilvy and Angus Ogilvy, a British businessman, husband of Princess Alexandra of Kent, a first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II.
The shopping centre rebranded as intu Lakeside in 2013, after the centre's parent company Captial Shopping Centres Group plc became intu properities plc.
Today with the various retail parks, Lakeside, has become one of the largest shopping areas in one single location in European.
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