Westgate Shopping Centre, Oxford

Westgate Shopping Centre

The side entrance to the Westgate Shopping Centre.
Location	Oxford, England
Coordinates	51°45′04″N 1°15′40″W / 51.751°N 1.261°W / 51.751; -1.261
Opening date	1972
Architect	Douglas Murray (City Architect)
Website	westgateoxford.co.uk

The Westgate Shopping Centre (aka the Westgate Centre and just Westgate) is a shopping centre in central Oxford, England. It was built between 1970–72, designed by the City Architect Douglas Murray and built by Taylor Woodrow. Excavations for the 1970s service basements destroyed evidence for over a twentieth of the remains of the original medieval town, and the 2015-2017 redevelopment saw "the extensive remains of the medieval Greyfriars friary (AD 1244-1538)" destroyed in favour of an underground car park

The centre has been closed since February 2016 for redevelopment and is planned to re-open on October 2017.

Westgate is located at the west end of Queen Street, where the west gate of the city of Oxford used to be situated. A car park, including a multi-storey section, is attached to the shopping centre, with access from Oxpens Road. Plans to expand the shopping centre, tripling it in size, are well underway, with construction originally planned to start January 2009.

Bonn Square is close to the main entrance and Oxford Castle is to the northwest. The Clarendon Centre, a smaller shopping centre completed in 1984, is also in Queen Street.

In September 2004, The Westgate Partnership published plans for redevelopment of the Westgate area in Oxford. This set out a strategy to provide improved and extended retail space as part of a wider regeneration of the Westgate area, aiming to ensure that any new development is integrated into the surrounding area, taking into account the history of Oxford.

This was endorsed by Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Council in October 2004. Following this, the Partnership worked on issues raised during the consultation period and in August 2005, published a Response to Consultation, which incorporated work undertaken with the Transport Working Group. Since then, work has been undertaken on the detailed design in consultation with local stakeholders, including the local community and special interest groups. A detailed planning application was submitted on 13 June 2006. On 9 March 2007, Capital Shopping Centres received approval for the extension and the partial redevelopment of the existing Westgate Shopping Centre.