PLANS have been unveiled to breathe new life into Sale town centre and bring even more independent traders to the town.

These are the artist's impressions of the scheme that was revealed to local business owners recently during a webinar called ‘The Changing Face of Sale Town Centre’ and it was hosted by Altrincham and Sale Chamber of Commerce.

Among the main changes in the scheme include removing barriers to the walkway which will help effectively open up one side of the town creating greater connectivity between School Road and Northernden Road.

More independent traders are set to encouraged and old canopies removed to add more light while flexible first floor office space is also part of planned improvements.

Michael Brown, director of developers Altered Space, who have been pulling together the plans with architects Simpson Haugh, said they are looking to re-purpose the current buildings.

He said: "We are very excited about the scheme.

"The Square and School Road are pretty tired and our aim is to amalgamate them. We want to bring vibrancy to the scheme with new shop fronts for high quality retailers and commercial traders.

"We want to work within the fabric of the current buildings and not just put a bulldozer to them.

"It is repurposing for flexible

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office space. The proposed changes should make the new retail space more affordable by removing redundant first floor storage space and refurbishing it to provide high quality flexible office space.

"In turn those 40-80 employees will hopefully be spending their money in the town.

"The introduction of the new public realm, greenery and lighting will create a new sense of life in the town and as a result we will hope to have a lot more people drinking and eating out in town.

"Sale’s quite dark in the evenings in some areas, it’s not that inviting and what we want is to get people to this part of the town and make it inviting and warm in the evenings.

""We are hoping to achieve planning approval from the council to commence work in the late part of the year.

"We are working with our agents Sixteen Real Estate and LTL Property Consultants and looking to keep our strong independent traders and have a diverse tenant base which will appeal to the community."