Work to create food hub at Swindon’s Brunel Centre gets underway

Building work to create a new food hub for The Brunel Shopping Centre  in Swindon Town Centre has now officially started. 

The  development, called The Crossing, will provide 16,000 sq ft of food service space on the first floor, upper mall and will create a new heart for the shopping centre. 

Main contractor, Stainforth Construction, moved onto site earlier this week but shoppers and retailers are being reassured that the construction work will not interfere with the Christmas shopping period. 

Kevin Gwilliam, General Manager at The Brunel, said: “Protecting the crucial Christmas shopping period is paramount for us and the development programme has been designed in phases to ensure Christmas trading is not affected. 

"In the first phase, we relocated affected retailers to other areas of the shopping centre.  Now this second phase has started some existing shop fronts in the empty units will be replaced with hoardings. Other than this, shoppers and retailers will mostly be unaware that the building work is happening behind the scenes.”

The new development will open in spring next year, following the relocation of a water main. Kevin explained: “We have been in discussions with Thames Water for some time and I am pleased to report that  they  plan to relocate the water main in January, which will allow us to open The Crossing in the spring."

Meanwhile FI Real Estate Management (FIREM), who own and manage The Brunel, have been in discussion with restaurants and food outlets interested in opening up in the new development. 

Stephanie McGaffin, Senior Asset Manager at FIREM, said: “I’m pleased to say that we’ve had a lot of interest in The Crossing and we should soon be in a position to make announcements about the brands that will be joining us in Swindon Town Centre.” 

Upon completion, the development will also incorporate a new play zone, an event space, charge points for mobile devices, free super-fast Wi-Fi plus refurbished customer toilets.  It will be located in the area around the existing link bridge between Brunel Arcade and Brunel Plaza on the first floor of the shopping centre and will benefit from a direct link from Canal Walk via a new escalator entrance.