Tunbridge Wells Sets October Date to Vote on First Phase of Royal Victoria Place Overhaul

Tunbridge Wells Borough Council has set out when it will take the decisions that determine whether its plan to remodel the Royal Victoria Place shopping centre actually goes ahead, with the first vote due in October.

Two notices added to the council's forward plan on 3 September confirm the sequence. On 22 October the Cabinet is due to consider a report on the Palm Court part of the scheme - the enclosed mall the council wants to turn into what it calls enhanced retail space - seeking approval of the budgets and the delegations needed to deliver it, and to begin procuring the design-and-build contract for the wider redevelopment. That decision would then go to full Council on 11 November.

A separate report on the full scheme - Palm Court together with Ely Court, where a boutique cinema and leisure and restaurant units are proposed - is scheduled for Cabinet on 15 April 2027, with full Council on 21 April. Both reports are listed as part-exempt, meaning some of the financial detail will be discussed in private.

The council bought RVP in 2023 and, in July 2025, councillors agreed to pursue what officers called Combined Option 1: leisure-led uses on Ely Court, a repurposed Palm Court with more retail space, and homes on Market Square. A feasibility study that drew on more than 2,800 responses from residents and businesses concluded the option was financially viable once its wider economic benefits were taken into account, with the detailed costs and designs left to the next phase - the reports now timetabled for October and next April.

When the plan was first put forward the council talked about submitting a planning application in spring 2026 and starting construction in the second half of 2027, for completion by the end of 2029. For the businesses currently trading in Ely Court, some of whom the council has said may need to move, and for shoppers who have watched the centre lose anchor tenants in recent years, the October meeting is the point at which the project stops being a set of visualisations and starts committing money. Source: Tunbridge Wells Borough Council