A PLAN on the way forward for Ayr town centre is set to go to public consultation this week.

South Ayrshire Council’s cabinet will hear how the draft Ayr Town Centre Framework has progressed.

The framework will outline the priorities for the town centre, along with a delivery and action plan that focuses on strategic projects that the council can ‘support and enable’.

The report to cabinet states that the work forms part of a developing strategy to ‘rebalance, regenerate and repopulate’ Ayr town centre to ‘support growth, make the centre more vital and successful and reassert Ayr’s role as the region’s primary centre’.

Four priorities for the plan are:

 Creating an integrated public transport Interchange.

 Improving accessibility and mobility and supporting active travel choice

Improving the quality, liveability, and appeal of the town centre.

Encouraging more footfall and reasons to use and visit the town centre

It continues: “Ayr Town Centre, like many town centres, continues to face major challenges due to changing consumer behaviours, e-commerce and on-line shopping, Covid impacts and the costs of operating within the High Street environment.

“A new Town Centre Framework can positively contribute to the regeneration of Ayr town centre and provide a key document in support of external funding.”

These encompass a new transport interchange, Hourstons and Arran Mall Care Village, Accessible Ayr, the Esplanade and the development of the Kyle Quarter.

It continues: “The Framework and projects can form the foundation for transformational change linked to a wider existing council programme of activity capable of securing external funding and investment support.”

The draft framework, if approved, will go out to public consultation from this week through to January 2024, with the cabinet approving a final plan in March.

An additional piece of work is to be carried out at Burns Statue Square, to consider outline designs and costings for improvement works that would be carried out throughout 2024.

The report concludes that the council wants to see increased footfall in the town, with people staying longer and spending more, extending the town centre catchment and increasing the opportunity to live in the town centre.

Members of the cabinet will consider the report on Tuesday, November 28.