Elephant and Castle shopping centre is planned to be demolished and rebuilt in 2019, I asked a couple of students how often they visited the shopping centre and how it will affect them.
Elephant and Castle shopping centre has stood for over 50 years, located next to the underground, the shopping centre is home to 86 shops, many of these are local businesses, along with market traders. The shopping centre provides cheap alternatives, like poundland and Iceland. Although the upcoming 2019 plan to demolish and regenerate the building will include a new cinema and more high street shops, equally creating more jobs for local residents, most of the local traders are now faced with having relocate. I spoke to a couple of students to see their views on the new regeneration plan, Finlay, an LSBU student aged 22 says, ‘I love the shopping centre, there are cheap alternatives that are hard to find in the borough, I’ve also started buying fresh fruit and vegetables from the market which I think is much better than going to the supermarket and much cheaper as well compared to Sainsbury’s and Tesco’. In comparison to this opinion I spoke to other students who weren’t as keen on the shopping centre and who are perhaps looking forward to the regeneration, Alice aged 20, a product design student at LSBU said, ‘I rarely go to the shopping centre it, I hate it and I could do with a new lick of paint’.
