The main shopping centre in Aldershot is lining up a major new High Street retailer, the News has learned.

The owner of the Wellington Centre, the two-floor indoor shopping centre in the town centre, is in discussions with the as-yet unnamed company over converting a large part of the centre’s Lower Walk into a new flagship store.

It is hoped a new major-name shop would attract thousands of new shoppers into the town centre to boost its flagging trading figures, likely to be badly hit by the economic recession.

The shop could provide a major lift for the Wellington Street end of the centre, which runs over two floors between Union Street and Wellington Street. London and Cambridge Properties, the company that owns the leasehold of the Wellington Centre, denied there were any confirmed plans to change the layout of the centre.

Edward Mileham, asset manager for the company, said: “We have no definite plans regarding the Wellington Centre but are always looking at opportunities to enhance its appeal as Aldershot’s primary retail destination.”

In an secret meeting with Rushmoor Borough Council’s decision-making cabinet committee, council chief executive Andrew Lloyd informed councillors that the Wellington Centre’s owner was proposing to “reconfigure” the Low Walk at the centre to create a large new unit for a major new store.

In minutes of the meeting, now publicly available, the council leaders were told the proposal would need existing tenants to be moved and building work would be needed to change the Wellington Street entrance to the shopping centre.

Leaders were told how much the proposals would cost and  that London and Cambridge had asked the council to waive its ground rent for two years to let the work to take place, as well asking the council to pay for its own legal costs.

After looking at what the proposals would cost the council, the Cabinet agreed to support them, on the basis that in the longer term, the attraction of a “major retailer” would help bring in more cash to the town and therefore to the council’s coffers.

For more on this story, see the Aldershot News, out on Friday November 21.