Wallsend shopping centre facing sale

The company behind a North Tyneside shopping centre has entered receivership, leaving traders having to reassure their customers that they will be carrying on, business as usual.

CPI Retail Active Management Programme (CReAM), which funded Wallsend's Forum Shopping Centre, entered into receivership on Tuesday night. Centre manager, Tony Donnelly, urged traders to "keep calm and carry on," but many feared what the status would mean for the long-awaited regeneration of Wallsend.

Secretary of the Chamber of Trade, Gill Ruffles, who owns Maple Textiles in Wallsend, said many tradespeople were hoping the centre would be bought by someone with high hopes for the town.

"It could be a good thing, because it could get bought by someone who really wants to improve Wallsend and make a centre full of bespoke shops that people want to come to," she said.

"We need a social hub, they cannot flatten it to put a car park there."

Commercial property company, Jones Lang LaSalle, has assumed the centre's management from Stockland UK, along with four connected centres – Fareham's Locks Heath Centre, Central Square in Birmingham, Bramley Shopping Centre in Leeds, and West Sussex's The Martlets Shopping Centre.

Nigel Wheeler, chairman of property and asset management, said: "Our regional retail management teams will be working with the centre management staff over the coming months to improve customer experience at each centre, as well as driving forward a number of important asset management initiatives."

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