A SPECIAL exhibition and presentation is being held next week to give townsfolk a say on potential plans to build a multi-storey car park and leisure facilities in the town.

Consultation on the scheme started on September 15, and will run until 5pm on Friday, November 2. But now an exhibition and presentation will enable people to find out more and to ask questions.

A planning brief, which outlines plans for more facilities near to St Andrew's shopping centre and a multi-storey car park, has been drawn up by site owners Kandahar Real Estate with Wychavon District Council.

The local authority's development control committee gave the go ahead for the document to be put out for public consultation before a planning application is submitted when it met in August.

The proposed multi-storey car park and further expansion of the site form potential additional phases to the already approved £4million refurbishment at the centre.

A venue for the exhibition had not been decided when The Advertiser went to press, but it will either be held at the Community Contact Centre or in the library.

It will start next week and run until the end of the consultation period.

The presentation will be held in the Community Hall, in Heritage Way, next Tuesday from 7pm. It is open to members of the public and key interested parties, including the town council, will also be attending.

The planning brief does not give specific details of the sort of leisure facilities that could be put forward for the town. The document is deliberately vague as it is hoped residents will give their views on what they would and wouldn't want from any such scheme.

Nothing has been decided and no planning application has been submitted so that residents' views or concerns can be ironed out at the very start of the process.

Fred Davies, Wychavon's policy manager in planning services, said: "The consultation will run until the beginning of November and the exhibition and presentation means residents can find out what is happening and ask any questions they may have.

"The planning brief is the step before the planning application. We want to hear from residents and all the comments, positive and negative, will be reported back to the committee."

The comments will then go to the development control (policy) committee on December 13 when they will be discussed by members. Its recommendation will then go to the executive board, which meets on January 8. A full planning application could then be submitted.

Mike Tyler, director of Kandahar Real Estates, has said the input from the public consultation will help inform a planning application.