St Aldate's set for new shops

8:01pm Thursday 4th October 2007

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St Aldate's is set to be transformed into Oxford's next shopping hotspot.

The city's main post office is to become the focal point of major development plans, with the large sprawling site behind the building, owned by Oxford University's Merton College, providing "a new dimension to shopping in Oxford."

Merton is also seeking a tenant to create a plush basement restaurant in the Post Office's large underground storage area.

The basement site, overlooked by Christ Church and Oxford Town Hall, is being advertised by the Oxford-based letting company James Styles & Whitlock.

The college has said the scheme is separate to a bigger plan to develop a large plot of land behind the Post Office, which presently has a complex pattern of land uses, including yards, offices, mini cabs and semi-derelict storage space.

The London-based development company, the Carlyle Group, has already signed long lease agreements with Merton.

It is proposed that the site stretching from Marks & Spencer's Queen Street store to St Aldate's would be used as a new shopping area with offices and student accommodation.

It would be crossed by a series of narrow lanes with a pedestrian square in the centre.

Nik Lyzba, of the Oxford planning consultants John Phillips Planning, who are acting for Merton, said: "We are still working on the final plans. We expect to have made some real progress by the end of the year.

"One of the great things about this scheme is that it will open up part of the city centre that people have never had access to before.

"It will not be a large shopping arcade and will not be in competition with the new Westgate centre. But it will add a new dimension to shopping in Oxford, which many people believe has become pretty poor."

The site is identified in the Oxford Local Plan as offering "an opportunity to create a range of small shops and improve pedestrian link through the site".

The scheme is expected to intensify pressure for the removal of buses from Queen Street, with years of negotiations between planners and bus companies having failed to find a way to get buses out.

Craig Middleton, of JSW, said no opening date for the restaurant could be given as that depended on "whoever comes forward".

The Post Office building, built between 1878 and 1880, was bought by Merton College in 2003. The Post Office rents the ground floor back.