A planning application has been sent to Oxford City Council for the proposals on the outside of the St Ebbe’s Street side, close to its junction with Bonn Square.
The proposals comprise a digital screen to display media that will serve a range of purposes connected with the Westgate centre and its city centre context.
Included in this are welcome and centre messaging, brands, product promotions, real-time information on local facilities and events and wayfinding.
“Unlike other recent proposals in the vicinity to which reference will be made, this is not simply a screen for advertising commercial content,” planning documents say.
“On the contrary it is a digital cultural platform that is intended to enhance visitor engagement, dwell time, community connection and commercial performance of the Westgate centre, and therefore the city centre as a whole.
“The communication of real-time information is an operational imperative to ensure that essential information is available to users of the Westgate centre, and wider city centre.
“It is a customer expectation that must be provided in connection with contemporary shopping environments.
“Beyond the communication of essential information, there are wider commercial imperatives for the installation of digital media that are grounded in the extremely challenging circumstances generally affecting bricks and mortar retailing in the face of the exponential rise in on-line platforms, as well as additional, Oxford-specific circumstances.”
Oxford City Council will decide on the application in due course.
#Westgate #Oxford #set #sixmetre #high #digital #screen