Barclays eyes Chester branch move
The firm wants to open its doors off Northgate Street, relocating from its St Werburgh Street site to allow Chester Cathedral to reclaim its Town Hall Square-facing wing.
Barclays Bank has submitted a planning application to Chester West and Chester Council to convert the 5,000 sq ft former city centre McDonald’s building into a bank.
Designed by ISG, the scheme would see the installation of one external ATM, new signage, and three air conditioning condensing units at the two-storey property.
The council-owned Northgate Street building has been vacant since McDonald’s closed its doors there in 2018.
Chester Cathedral wants to reclaim its wing off St Werburgh Street. Credit: via Chester Cathedral
The plans for Barclays’ relocation are the result of a partnership between Chester Cathedral, Barclays, and CWAC.
The institutions have been in talks since 2021 to allow Chester Cathedral to reclaim the hidden part of its estate at St Werburgh Street as part of its £11m Project Discovery. Discussions also aimed to ensure that the bank remained in a city centre location.
Project Discovery hopes to reconnect Chester Cathedral’s estate with the city centre and its communities by revealing it to a wider audience.
To find out more about Barclay’s plans for Northgate Street, search for application number 23/02236/FUL on CWAC’s planning portal.
CWAC are really getting their act together in this part of town.
By Rich X
@Rich X
Quite! All they need to do now is raze the Forum. I’d build an urban village here with streets feeding back into the existing townscape.
By SW
Agree with SW. Chester Market has been a success, but it’s still part of some specialised mega structure. It would be great for Chester to get to more human scale mixed used based on historic street patterns.
By Rich X
Not a wise move for Barclays for the simple reason that in the future when they finally make a decision about the forum they may be forced to close. It would have been far better for Barclays to move into the empty Halifax building just a short distance from the present position.
By Gordon Davies