The new owners of The Forum in Sittingbourne have revealed a multi-million pound redevelopment with new shops, cafés, and even flats on the roof.
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00:00Big plans are underway to fill the gaps and transform Sittingbourne's town centre
00:05as the new owners of the Forum Shopping Centre unveil a multi-million pound redevelopment plan to Kent Online.
00:12Following a £2.4 million takeover, Vanguard Properties says it wants to turn the site into a key destination for Kent shoppers.
00:19We are trying to live the community more, to make this area so much better for, as you can see, the place is so busy.
00:27So what we really want to focus on, here you have cinemas, you have Nando's, you have an arcade, here you have other shops, different type of shops.
00:35So then when the consumer or the customer or the resident come to this area, they don't need to go anywhere else.
00:42We have everything here and around there.
00:43And we also have very big plans to add around 74 units on the top of the shopping centre.
00:51And this for us is to convert it from just a normal shopping centre in the heart of Sittingbourne to be a major mixed-use development.
00:59Since December, five of the centre's nine empty units have already been filled, including the upcoming Julian's Pie and Mass shop and a new cafe.
01:09Talks are also ongoing with a major national retailer.
01:12The Forum Shopping Centre is in the heart of Sittingbourne, very close to the high street, very close to the train station, very close to the main bus station in Sittingbourne.
01:21So the location was very iconic.
01:22So as it stands now, we are focusing on major retailers to come to our shopping centre.
01:28We are also focusing on adding some F&B.
01:31And you cannot really get F&B online.
01:34So that is our goal.
01:35We want to attract a higher number of food fall into the shopping centre.
01:39The only way to do this is by attracting shops that you cannot find online.
01:43Since our takeover, we have added a Samba shop.
01:46We have added a Piamat shop and some other shops.
01:51This is a very big development that will be taking place from this time for the next two or three years.
01:58It is not a one-day mission.
02:01It's happening in stages.
02:02We are going to do full refurbishment for the shopping centre inside, changing the look and the feel to make it more attractive to all the customers.
02:12We'll be adding more shops.
02:14We'll be adding a big anchor shop for Unit 19, where the previous Tesco's used to be.
02:19And, yeah, I mean, I hope we can serve the community.
02:22With up to £7 million being invested, it's a bold bid to revive one of Sittingbourne's best-known shopping hubs.
02:30But Vanguard hopes the site's location will help draw even more footfall and keep people shopping local instead of online.
02:37Kristen Hawthorne for KMTV.