Plans to redevelop Preston’s Fishergate Shopping Centre have cleared an early hurdle after it was ruled they did not require a special assessment of their potential impact on the environment.

The decision – by Preston City Council – relates to the first two phases of the proposed scheme, which would see four office blocks built on the car park of the site.

It paves the way for a formal planning application to be submitted for that part of the project, which would also include the demolition of the rear of the TK Maxx and TJ Hughes stores.

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The ultimate long-term vision is to turn the whole plot into a “high-rise” development, which documents lodged with the local authority earlier this year indicate would involve the entire shopping centre being demolished to make way for four further blocks that would have a mixture of uses.

A blueprint to transform the area around Preston station, which was unveiled two years ago, suggests that those later buildings would incorporate retail units, leisure facilities and residential space.   The Preston Station Quarter Regeneration Framework, as it is known, puts a timeframe of at least a decade on the overarching scheme.

All of the plans are currently indicative and would require planning permission before they could be realised. If eventually approved, however, they would herald the end of the Fishergate Shopping Centre – which opened in 1986 – in its current form.

The Martin Property Group – which owns the precinct – said that an outline planning application would be drawn up for the buildings earmarked for the car park, once it had received confirmation from the city council that the proposed development did not require a so-called “environmental impact assessment” (EIA).

If the scheme gets the green light, the two towers that make up the first phase of the scheme – one with nine floors and the other six – would form part of a bid by Preston to become a regional ”office hub” for government departments.   They would be built in the far south of the current 780-space car park.

The other two blocks, close to the rear of the shopping centre itself  – and eight and nine storeys in height – would provide the kind of ‘grade A’ office space that the city is currently deemed to lack.

The outline application will be accompanied by a masterplan for the wider site, which includes a new public square that would welcome visitors to the city arriving by train.

In a consultation response to the city council’s consideration of the need for an EIA, Lancashire County Council said any archaeological interest in the location – relating to its previous use as a goods station – was likely to have been lost when the Fishergate Shopping Centre was built.

Meanwhile, Network Rail has submitted a series of conditions that it would want to see attached to any future planning permission in order to protect Preston station and its infrastructure.  The organisation said it reserves the right to “amend [or] update” its demands – or even object to the redevelopment proposals altogether – if fresh information comes to light during the planning process.

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