Planning Green Light for Bedford's New Bus Station

Monday night saw a major step forward for our plans for a new bus station for Bedford, with the Council's planning committee giving them its unanimous backing.

The new bus station is the central feature of our £8.8 million project to regenerate this area, which will also see the refurbishment of Allhallows multi-storey car park, new public toilets with improved disabled and baby change facilities, new shopfronts for the units below the car park, a brand new surface car park on Greyfriars and improvements to the area in front of the car park, with new paving, seating and more.

The project will deliver a major boost for Bedford Town Centre, after so many years of disappointment and dashed hopes over a site that frankly drags Bedford down. For decades people have talked locally of how the area needs updating and the bus station needs replacing, so it's great to have planning approval in place for our plans to do both.

We have put together the full funding for the project, and with work already underway on the car park and the bus station works to begin in the early part of next year, I'm pleased that we are making these much-needed improvements happen. This is all happening in defiance of the difficult economic climate, of course, while an improved, attractive bus station area will represent another feature to help attract crucal investement and jobs to the Borough.