Shopping centre wins top awards

Thousands attended the opening of the £500m shopping centre

Bristol's new £500m Cabot Circus shopping centre has won two awards.

It earned a Gold Award for best new shopping centre and a Supreme Award as overall winner in the British Council of Shopping Centres (BCSC) Awards.

The development, which includes 140 shops, 25 restaurants, 250 apartments, offices, student housing, a cinema and a hotel, opened in September.

John Hirst, manager of the neighbouring Broadmead Centre, said it was good news for the city.

"It's fantastic news for Cabot Circus and most importantly, for Bristol," he said.

"If you look back a few years ago, we were bouncing along the bottom and now we've hit the top and the sky's the limit for shopping in the centre of Bristol now."

The judges said: "This scheme is a truly excellent example of a mixed-use scheme, incorporating high quality retail and leisure, as well as apartments, offices, hotel, public spaces, restaurants and cinema.

"The challenge of this site was how to ensure good natural customer foot flow at both main retailing levels and this has been superbly achieved by the use of level change linkages to the surrounding streets."