A NEW shopping precinct would be created around Wantage’s civic hall under a new residents’ town plan.

Under the plan, Wantage Sorting Office would be converted into three-storey buildings around a courtyard with ground floor shops and flats above.

Moving south, the regeneration would cross Church Street and enter a new street named Beacon Lane on what is now the road leading up to The Beacon.

This avenue would be lined by three-storey developments with ground floor shops and other leisure uses with more flats above.

Beacon Lane would end in a “small, sunny square” wrapped around the entrance to The Beacon with 2,280 sq m of ground floor shops and restaurants and 72 flats above.

If the plan passes a town-wide referendum and is approved by government, it will help fast-track the sort of development it proposes, and hinder alternative propositions.

For example, Royal Mail has not been consulted about the proposal to convert its sorting office into a shopping area, but if the plan is adopted it could act as a prior approval for such a scheme, which could make it easier for Royal Mail to get planning permission to sell the site.

Leaflets about the draft plan are being delivered to every home in the OX12 postcode, and Wantage’s 11,000 residents are being asked for their feedback. Steering group chairwoman Julie Mabberley urged people to join in the consultation.

She said: “We cannot finalise the policies in the plan without residents telling us what is really important to them.”

The plan can only be adopted if over 50 per cent of people vote for it in a referendum next year.

Vale of White Horse District Council’s Retail and Town Centre Study of October 2014 said Wantage would need to find an extra 4,200 sq m of retail floorspace by 2031.

The steering group originally looked at expanding the town centre onto King’s Wharf around Sainsbury’s or the Broadway Motors site at the bottom of Wallingford Street.

But separate plans to develop King’s Wharf were revealed last month and Broadway owner John Smith has said he would never sell his site.

Ms Mabberley warned that the biggest obstacle to extending the town centre was a plan to turn the old police station in Church Street into retirement homes.