The first part of a town’s £21 million regeneration project has been completed with a building society moving into new premises.
Nationwide Building Society opened in the former Peel Café on Market Street in Tamworth on Friday.
Tamworth Borough Council formally handed over the renovated building in July last year and work to complete the shop front and interior fit has since taken place.
The project is part of the council’s Future High Streets Fund regeneration programme to transform the town centre into the busy, thriving heart of the community.
Council Leader Councillor Carol Dean said: “It’s so good to see this wonderful property completed in its original Georgian style in active use as Nationwide Building Society.
“While other parts of our town centre transformation are also nearly complete, the opening of the building society a significant milestone, as the first of our regeneration projects to be fully complete.
“With Nationwide Building Society in their new home, we’ll demolish their former building which was built in the 1960s to create a more open and wider footbridge connecting the town and castle grounds.”
Emma Cotterill, Senior Branch Manager at Nationwide in Tamworth, said: “The Nationwide team and I are so happy to reopen in a fresh space in town with a new improved branch, just over the street from our old location.
“There’s been a Nationwide branch in Tamworth for over 50 years – since 1973 – and with this new investment, branch service is here to stay on the high street in Tamworth.”
Other sites of the council’s transformation plans ‘continue to progress well’.
A new enterprise centre for small businesses being created in the original 19th Century former Co-operative building on Colehill, is nearly completed and is expected to open in the coming months.
And South Staffordshire College is progressing with building a new college facility replacing the demolished 1960s part of the Co-op building.
Anyone interested in moving into the new enterprise centre should email [email protected].
