Construction of Wigan’s Grand Arcade is well under way. If you drive past the site you’ll appreciate the scale of the development. It runs from Standishgate down to the Riverway bypass.

The website says that Wigan is ideally situated for such a development:

Management Horizons Europe say:‘Highly populated catchment area – total of 1,052,000 residents.

Total annual retail expenditure (all product categories) £2.8 billion (Ex.VAT).Grand Arcade will increase Wigan’s market size by 43% and it’s Core Catchment market share (it’s principal trading area) from 35% to 46%’.

Data Source: Managment Horizons Europe

There are other similar figures, and it all sounds very familiar. The Skelmersdale Vision process came up with similar figures for catchment areas – arguing that Skem could be a sub-regional centre, but some – not all – of the proposals were based on shopping.

The vision will be out soon and I hope that it isn’t based on shopping alone. Such a scheme would need lots of private money to help construct a new town centre, and if there are bigger, better places nearby, any scheme for Skem probably won’t get off the ground.