It's goodbye King William and hello John Lewis
It's not just the former Debenhams building that will proudly bear the John Lewis name... for soon a well known city car park will too.
At some point over the next couple of days, more observant drivers heading into the city centre will notice that some of the signage on the car park dot matrix boards has been changed.
Gone is King William Street (although only the car park name, not the actual street) and in its place will be signs for the John Lewis car park - all very obvious, really. What is not quite so obvious, though, is the rebranding of two more of the city’s car parks.
The signs have been up inside Dix’s Fields and Broadwalk House for a couple of weeks, but this week they will officially become Princesshay 2 and Princesshay 3 respectively. Princesshay becomes Princesshay 1.
“There were two decisions taken together, first of all to rebrand King William Street as the John Lewis car park,” says John Harvey, the city centre manager. “That's because as a visitor to the city - and now there will be many more visitors to the city who have not been here before or not been here for some time - you don't know what King William Street means or where it is in terms of the city centre. That was a logical thing.
“In terms of Princesshay, renaming them 1, 2 and 3 was a similar argument. Talking to city residents, Dix's Fields and Broadwalk House mean something, but if you're an outsider they mean absolutely nothing to you whatsoever. Where's Dix’s Fields or the Civic Centre? Where’s Broadwalk House? By branding them Princesshay 2 and 3 people can understand that there is a relationship there.
“Bizarrely, Broadwalk House car park is probably closer to most of the main shops in Princesshay then the main car park, but that was the logic in blocking them together - to make it easier for motorists to navigate their way in and out of the city centre. It is the first impression a lot of people will get of our city and it is terribly important. If they can't find where they want to go because the car park names are confusing, then you're starting from quite a low base in terms of how impressed they are.”
John says there is now a race against time to change the pedestrian signs, the traffic signs and the car park signs and although he is sure that the overwhelming majority of that task will be delivered by October 11, he says Exeter residents shouldn't expect it to be delivered much before then. So keep your eyes open.
