Your vision for a new Lakeside (From Thurrock Gazette)

Your vision for a new Lakeside

8:00am Monday 6th August 2012 in News

A shopper gets interactive during the consultation

ICE skating, Christmas markets and big screenings of major sporting events are just some of the new leisure facilities shoppers want to see at Lakeside Shopping Centre.

Around 650 people took part in the centre’s latest consultation about plans for its new leisure development.

Shoppers were invited to draw, write or video their ideas for what they want to see, with the help of professional digital illustrators who used iPads to visualise the ideas.

Lakeside’s general manager Paul Lancaster said: “We’re delighted so many people participated in this exciting and unique consultation and the overwhelming support we’ve garnered for the proposed leisure facilities.

“Our shoppers shape everything we do at Lakeside and they have given us some fantastic ideas about what sort of leisure space to bring to this area.

“We know people already come to Lakeside for much more than just shopping and with the help of local people we will make Lakeside an even more exciting leisure destination in future.”

The new leisure facilities will be the second phase of an £180million expansion of the centre, aimed at developing a family-friendly leisure destination, focused around a public square, with bars, cafes and entertainment venues, near the existing Boardwalk development.

Popular ideas among shoppers included bowling alleys, gyms, spas and more bars and restaurants.

Of those surveyed, 78 per cent were keen for more leisure space and 82 per cent said they’d spend more time at Lakeside if there were better leisure facilities.

Lakeside’s expansion plans are set to create more than 2,600 new jobs and deliver more than £14.5million in community infrastructure benefits in the process.

It is hoped construction on the first phase of the expansion will start next year, with a phased opening in 2016.