A STREET market, a covered shopping centre and moving key services could be the building blocks of Ferndown’s planned makeover.

East Dorset District council is considering moving or redeveloping Ferndown Day Care centre and closing the Penny’s Walk public toilets, which cost £20,000 a year to run, to make room for other ventures.

Other ideas under the Total Place review, which looks at maximising the council’s assets and informed the Core Strategy proposals, include selling underused car parks or closing the county-run Penny’s Lodge weekend car park. Richard Henshaw, the council’s Forward Plans team leader, says more could be made of Penny’s Walk.

“It’s a key part of the town centre and people are just whizzing by,” he said. “But it’s an opportunity. The town centre is suffering at the moment. We can leave it as it is or really make things happen. With the economic climate this is a very good time to get plans in place so that when developers start looking again, we can lead the debate.”

The Chamber of Commerce has been canvassed. Chairman Christine Shade said changing the use of the day centre was an ‘excellent idea’.

She added: “Penny’s Walk needs smartening up to give people somewhere they’d like to see and use rather than just march through.

“There’s all sorts of things we could do, and you can come up with wish lists but it comes down to money.

“But don’t shut car parks – Ferndown has hardly any car parking and people have terrible trouble.”

Mayor Councillor Jean Read agreed, saying: “Ferndown really needs updating.

“We need it to be a lot brighter. We don’t have a lot of heritage and need something extra to bring people into the town rather than just drive through.

“It would make it more friendly and boost the shops as people would really stop and look at them.”