Inside ‘UK’s saddest shopping centre’ covered in graffiti with one store left
What is potentially one of the UK's saddest shopping centres only has one shop remaining and is in desperate need of an overhaul.
'Zombified' St Catherine's Place in Bedminster, Bristol has undergone a slow decline over the past 20 years.
The shopping centre now only has a Farm Foods store that still opens following the closure of an Iceland earlier this year.
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Five years ago, there were six stores operating in the dilapidated centre, and by 2020, the number dwindled to three.
St Catherine's Place's future is uncertain, despite many proposed plans to rejuvenate it.
Plans have ranged from building a big block of flats beside it to transforming the place into a bustling thoroughfare.
However, no such plans have come to fruition for two years since planning permission for several was granted, according to BristolLive.
The empty streets of St Catherine's Place are surrounded by boarded-up shop windows and old posters.
Although the shopping center has two floors, locals mainly use it as a shortcut to get somewhere, leaving it as a kind of zombiefied shopping district.
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Graffiti has been scrawled on many of the once bustling shops over the top of worn paint and dirty walls.
However, the shopping centre lies next to Bristol's East Street, which is the largest retail area outside of the city centre.
East Street is having something of a revival with an increasing number of independent stores and businesses are opening up enticed by the considerably lower rents in a city that has become a very expensive place to live.
Plans to refurbish, regenerate, or even rebuild St Catherine's Place remain on the table, it is thought, though for now the only signs of regeneration are found next door.
Work recently began on a huge student accommodation complex for the cities considerable student population.
A new 17-story block of flats next door also recently sprung up, sparking hope that the once adored shopping haven could one day see a return to its peak.
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