Demolition of Nottingham’s hated Broadmarsh car park is finally starting, Nottingham City Council has announced.
Work will begin at 11am, next Monday, September 18 – and a Bulwell resident will start things off with a sledgehammer after winning a Facebook competition.
Joy Rice will bash out the first few chunks of concrete after writing a poem explaining why she should get the honour.
The sledgehammer will be engraved and given to Joy to keep it as a memento of the day.
Nottingham City Council approved the demolition earlier this year and is expected to unveil plans for a new car park and bus station before Christmas.
Part of a planned £250 million revamp of the south side of the city, including the redevelopment of the Broadmarsh Shopping Centre, the process will see the end of a structure long maligned as a blight on the city landscape since it was first built in the 1970s.
Nottingham City Council leader Jon Collins said in August: “This is the first major step in redeveloping the Broadmarsh area and it will have its challenges for traffic and people getting round the area.
“However, we’ve done a lot to try and help people and ask you to bear with us as I’m confident it will all be worth the disruption.”
Hoarding has been placed around the building in preparation for Monday’s demolition work to begin.
Shoppers are using alternative car parks including two temporary ones on Canal Street during the closure and reconstruction.
Owners Intu have also submitted plans to redevelop the shopping centre, but are yet to start work.
In a planning summary, a document submitted with the application, intu originally said construction should start in 2016 and the ‘reimagined’ centre would fully open in 2018.
However the company’s report for the first half of 2017 indicated no money will be committed to the project until next year, with the £89million spending on the build stretching into 2020.
