{"id":793430,"date":"2026-10-06T06:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T06:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/793430\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T06:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T06:18:09","slug":"what-is-the-future-for-our-medium-sized-shopping-centres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/793430\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the future for our medium-sized shopping centres?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Brunel Centre was once a thriving retail destination, attracting shoppers from far and wide.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It was incredible,&#8221; says town councillor Keith Ely, who remembers its opening in Bletchley, Buckinghamshire, in 1973.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Back then, centre:MK, a large destination shopping centre four miles away in Milton Keynes, did not exist, and the Brunel was quite the draw.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Now, like many other medium-sized shopping centres, it is struggling.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Vacant units and graffiti-daubed shutters dominate, and it has just one store left.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">That remaining shop, a Boots Opticians, is set to close later this month ahead of the centre&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c790zznqxneo\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">planned demolition next year<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But Ely, 87, is not upset to see the Brunel make way for flats and a health centre, with only some retail space. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It is a sad old building, isn&#8217;t it?&#8221; he says. &#8220;There is no nostalgia from me.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Brunel Centre was once a thriving retail destination, attracting shoppers from far and wide. &#8220;It was incredible,&#8221;&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":793431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[59,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-793430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-gb","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=793430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/793431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}