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Daily’s supplement marks opening of £100m shopping complex

A £100m shopping complex’s opening was marked with a 24-page souvenir supplement and live online coverage by a regional daily.

The South Wales Argus produced the supplement, pictured below, to coincide with the opening of the Friars Walk complex, in Newport.

The complex includes more than 30 stores, with Debenhams as its anchor retailer, 11 restaurants and an eight-screen cinema.

The retail and leisure development has taken almost 30 years to come to fruition after a series of failed schemes, the most recent of which collapsed in 2008 at the height of the global financial crisis.

Friars Walk

Argus editor Kevin Ward said: “I first joined the Argus as a downtable sub-editor in 1989 and a proposed Debenhams store was headline news then.

“The city centre has suffered dreadfully over the last 20 years or so and a whole series of regeneration schemes have failed to come to fruition.

“Friars Walk finally makes the city a 21st century shopping destination and is already proving a catalyst in the overall regeneration of the city centre.

“We wanted to mark the opening in style and produced a souvenir supplement which took readers through the history of the development from start to finish, and also included some expert analysis of what Friars Walk means to the Newport economy as a whole.”

Argus journalists covered Thursday’s opening of the shopping complex with an online live blog which featured words, pictures, videos and social media comments from readers.

It was the most-read story in the Newsquest online network on the day, attracting almost 26,000 page views.

2 comments

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  • November 16, 2015 at 4:53 pm
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    Local paper produces fairly average commercial supplement (judging by front page pic and ad) for the opening of bog standard modern shopping centre.
    Shock.

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  • November 17, 2015 at 11:42 am
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    I agree with idle rich , why is this news? And have the reporters nothing better to do than report live via a blog?
    Commercial supplements are hardly big news and this , sad to say, looks typical of the glorified ad feature all of us have had to suffer at one time or another in an attempt to chase the cash.
    Would it not have been better to sell the management atvthe centre a souvenir booklet stand alone publication that could be branded by the paper but which would be kept by local people? Or was the real aim to get extra copy sales and for the reps to hit a target?
    Seriously guys if this is typical of cover wrap content these days you’d have to ask yourselves some serious questions

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