Economy of Shrewsbury

both in and out of the town centre, and these provide significant employment. Four in five jobs in the town are in the service industry. Within this sector, the largest employers are the administration and distribution sectors, which include retail, food and accommodation.

Shrewsbury is home to four shopping centres. The principal centres comprise the Darwin and Pride Hill shopping centres, which house many High Street retailers such as Marks & Spencer, H&M, Next, and Boots. Riverside provides further retail accommodation for stores including Wilkinson. A plan to redevelop Riverside and integrate a new development with the Darwin and Pride Hill centres was granted planning permission in April 2012. The project is dubbed "New Riverside". The Parade Shopping Centre is a fourth centre exclusively housing independent retailers. There are also two retail warehouse clusters: at Meole Brace Retail Park to the south, and at Sundorne Retail Park to the north. Major supermarkets in the town are the environmentally friendly Tesco Extra at Harlescott, Morrisons on Whitchurch Road, Asda on Old Potts Way and Sainsbury's at Meole Brace. A Waitrose supermarket scheme to the south could - if approved - open by the end of 2013.

The visitor economy of Shrewsbury and Atcham was worth about £115 million in 2001, with about 2,500 people employed directly in the visitor industry and 3,400 indirectly. There were about 3.1 million visitors – both day visitors and staying visitors – to the borough in 2001, with 88% being day visitors and 12% being staying visitors; staying visitors accounted for 42% of spending. Shrewsbury's position of being the only sizable town for a large area, especially to the west in Mid-Wales, allows it to attract a large retail base beyond that of its resident population. This is not only evident in the retail