Tuesday 9 August 2022 01:34 PM Inside Britain's 'zombie' shopping centre where EVERY store is shut trends now
A shopping centre dubbed the worst in Britain has no open stores — and is going to be 'recycled' into a business centre after a host of top names moved out.
Shoppers said that Festival Park shopping centre is a 'zombie-land' with lines of empty stores after more than 40 companies including M&S, Nike, Edinburgh Woollen Mill, Costa and Gap moved out in a retail slump.
When independent traders moved out it was left with a single Sports Direct store — but that has now closed because so few people were visiting.
The centre was opened in 1997 on the site of the Ebbw Vale Garden Festival, Gwent.
The 1992 festival was part of the Government's National Garden Festivals scheme, which saw heavy investment from taxpayer funds in former industrial sites.
The celebratory event welcomed as Prince Charles, singer Dannii Minogue and actress Catherine Zeta Jones, as visitors enjoyed the funfair, plant exhibitions, gardens and a cable railway.
A shopping centre dubbed the worst in Britain has no open stores — and is going to be 'recycled' into a business centre after a host of top names moved out
The centre was opened in 1997 on the site of the Ebbw Vale Garden Festival, Gwent
Some locals blamed lack of investment and planning by the Labour-run Blaenau Gwent Council for the decline — and others pointed at a lack of private investment
The shopping centre then took over the site, with many of the sculptures and original features from the 1992 event remaining in place.
Shopper Megan Woods, 59, said: 'It was amazing then — long queues to get in and a real buzz.
'It has its own fairground and even a talking moving clock.. But now it is more like a zombie-land with no-one here.
'Something has gone very wrong somewhere that all that investment of taxpayers money was wasted. It was getting bad before the pandemic but now it is just ridiculous.'
Some locals blamed lack of investment and planning by the Labour-run Blaenau Gwent Council for the decline — and others pointed at
