A Lansdowne cafe will eventually close as a result of Bournemouth Council’s plans to turn the area into a world class business district – but its owner says that the proposed developments for the area are “a fantastic thing”.
The roundabout by Bournemouth train station will be filled in as part of the council’s plans to create a “world class” business district after winning a bid for £8.5 million from the government.
Their proposed vision for Lansdowne will take up to ten years to complete, at which point FR8 Cafe, a pop-up cafe in the centre of the roundabout, will have to close and move on.
“The advantage of being a shipping container is that we can pick it up and put it somewhere else”
Owner of FR8 Cafe Tarek El-Dars said: “After its finished that’ll be that for us – we’ll move on and put it somewhere else. The advantage of being a shipping container is that we can pick it up and put it somewhere else rather than a permanent structure. But we always knew this and we were always aware of that being the case.
“I think it’s a fantastic idea to try and create a central business district in Bournemouth. I think it’ll be a fantastic thing for the area, to build it up and try and attract and keep the talent that we seem to produce in Bournemouth, rather than let it slip through our fingers.”
Bournemouth councillor David Kelsey said: “A lot of my residents have to use that underpass and it’s never been deemed as being a particularly nice environment. It’s improved at the moment because we’ve got a cafe down there that people are using and it does seem to have deterred the wrong people from going down there.
“But I think if we’re going to make the town more accessible for pedestrians we probably do need to fill that in, but we still need to give safe crossing.”
