Te Puke residents and businesspeople are throwing their support behind plans to redevelop the town centre.

A vision of the new town centre produced by Page Henderson Architects was presented at a town meeting this week outlining a number of broad concepts for the town's redevelopment.

More plantings, angle parking and pedestrian friendly spaces are some of the ideas planned for Jellicoe St under a Te Puke town centre redevelopment concept unveiled thi week.

Any final decisions on the plan will not however be made until after community consultation.

Driven by the Te Puke Economic Development Group, the redevelopment aims to recast the heart of Te Puke to take advantage of changes to traffic patterns when the Tauranga Eastern Link opens in late 2015.

Te Puke EDG manager Mark Boyle says the response from everyone at the meeting is overwhelmingly positive, and says a series of six workshops in next three months will give everyone a chance to have their say.

'There were quite a number of comments from people saying this was quite an opportunity to make our town a lot more attractive and a lot more functional. They saw this as being a coordinated and professional approach to try to take the town forward.”

Ideas discussed at the meeting covered the form and function of Jellicoe Street, new parking and what the town centre will look like and function with its proposed mix of retail and residential use. The plan for Jellicoe Street includes more plantings, angle parking, more pedestrian friendly spaces and the introduction of electric car chargers – which could be subsidised to attract customers.

Mark says redeveloping the town centre offers the chance to revitalise Te Puke as a destination with an 'attractive, highly differentiated and quite unique retail centre”.

He says work would not be complete by the time the TEL opened, major steps will have been taken to position Te Puke town centre to take advantage of opportunities from the State Highway bypass.

'It's not going to be all done in five minutes, but we can start making some serious progress on parts of it, particularly the road.”

Plans will be formalised after consultation begins, then the development group will begin lobbying New Zealand Transport Agency for changes to the main street, start a marketing campaign to attract the right businesses, and encourage landlords to make changes to their buildings that support the plan. Landlords are being encouraged to modify their shops as part of the strengthening and rebuilding work required to meet earthquake standards.

Community workshop dates will be announced next week. Details: www.tpedg.co.nz