THE owners of Bordon’s Forest Shopping Centre have said the facility “most certainly isn’t being sold” following rumours.

Some residents feared that a zoopla.co.uk listing, advertising land near the Forest Shopping Centre as a “development opportunity”, meant that plans to regenerate the centre were now in jeopardy.

But Graham McPhail, from London’s Orchard Grove Asset Management, which owns the centre, this week explained that the residential element of the scheme was always going to be sold to a developer.

“This has always been the plan,” he added. “It’s been well documented, well publicised.” He said he wanted to “quash” the rumour that the entire project was being abandoned and said the development of flats will be handed to “residential experts”, with funds generated from the sale reinvested in the centre.

This will allow Orchard Grove to “focus on what we’re good at”, which is managing the retail side of things and the Forest Shopping Centre’s overall improvement.

East Hampshire District Council granted planning permission for the project back in July. The decision came after the plans went through a series of drafts, with the flats’ aspect of the project causing contention among some residents.

The core aim of the project is, said to be, to breathe new life into the centre, which is set to be made more modern and welcoming to customers and traders. The centre has struggled in recent years, with store closures and the liquidation of the previous management.

As well as proposals for the centre itself, Orchard Grove Asset Management proposed new flats in Heathcote and Pinehill roads, as well as converted space above retail units.

The www.zoopla.co.uk listing describes it as a “development opportunity with planning permission to create 18 new-build apartments and convert part of the upper floors of this popular shopping centre to create a further 11 apartments”, priced at £650,000.

Mr McPhail said “there seem to be people who want to make this a negative story” when it is a “positive” one.

But some town residents doubt the plan to regenerate the Forest Shopping Centre will succeed. Some have suggested there is an intention to run down the shopping centre, ultimately to build further flats.

Mr McPhail said there was “a lot of work to be done”, but added that Orchard Grove had every intention of keeping its promise to regenerate the centre.

Another concern expressed is that, with the overall regeneration of Bordon drawing trade towards the new town centre at Prince Philip Barracks, the Forest Shopping Centre will see reduced footfall.

But after permission was granted, East Hampshire councillor Adam Carew said that, as the new town centre was “some years away” and “will have a very different appeal”, there was “absolutely no reason why both cannot co-exist”.

The promised improvements inside the centre will see the creation of new retail units and the reconfiguration of some existing ones.

There will be general work and renovations to make the centre “feel more open and welcoming”.

Alterations include: the removal of the eastern and western entrance doors and canopies; removal of the brick planters; repainting the canopy from black to white; providing new signage; removing the polycarbonate atrium roof, and installing new lighting, planters and a “green wall” of plants. There are also plans to install CCTV and aesthetically bring the centre, which dates back to 1983, into the 21st Century.