Trinity Walk — Local services in Wakefield

AWFUL!!!! I will NEVER use trinity walk again! Apart from the fact that I'm now BARRED!!...... was doing a bit of Christmas shopping, proceeded to the place to pay for my ticket, paid my fee, walked to the car and put my shopping in, set off and realised I couldn't find my ticket! Searched the car, my purse, myself..... couldn't find it anywhere!! Got to the barriers and pressed for assistance.... to be greeted with a women who clearly didn't get the job through her knowledge of customer service!!..... explained I'd misplaced my ticket after I'd paid for it on the way to the car........she said 'well there's nothing I can do with out a ticket'....... so I said why can't you just let the barrier up? I've paid for my ticket, she said 'no'... at this point cars are queuing up behind me, 3 days away from Christmas! then a bloke come walking over and said to go to the pay booth and press the button again for assistance, so I left my car at the barriers, where he said to leave it and went over to the booth, the woman with a disgraceful attitude went on to say 'you do know it's £12 for a lost ticket you know, the best I can do for you is to charge you from 9 this morning' so I told her in no uncertain terms would I be paying to get out of the car park! At best these barriers barely work anyway, I'm always ringing for assistance because my ticket never works!! So I went back to the car, 15 minutes later the man comes back, went on to say they've told me to tell you that this could be a police matter if you don't pay, so I told them I'm not paying, go ahead and ring the police, so they did, I pressed the button the first time at 1.15, still sat at the barriers at 3!! The police came, the copper was laughing! Told him what had happened, he went and spoke to them, he came back and said because you've no proof of paying for your ticket they want you to pay, so I told the copper I'm not paying £12 to get out! They can easily press a button and let me out, I've payed my fee, he said yes I know! I said tell them to look at cctv for proof.. he said I've already said that to them but they are not willing to look at the cctv, so I said well that's not my problem, I'm not paying! He went back to them and told them I'm not paying, so he came back and said well they will let you out but they are going to bar you from coming back! As you can imagine, I really want to go back! What a waste of police time, so I proved my point that I could get out with out paying £12 for a peice of card! Don't want to look at cctv, why do they have it then? Poor customer service, smarmy employees! High vis jackets and walkey talkeys have clearly gone to their heads!! What did they achieve by ringing the police having me sat there for 2 hours to press the button and let me out anyway!! Complete joke! I'd advise you to never use...

Your average shopping center found in any city. A decent Sainsbury's, that could do with a better restaurant. Great parking, that can get expensive over 2 hours.

Sadly, both Debenhams and the lovely Caffe Nero have left, as have a third of the remaining shops, including H&M, with Argos shutting shop and moving into Sainsbury's. The post office long ago moved into WH Smith, which doesn't seem to know what it's identity is any more. I foresee WH Smith either leaving Wakefield, or going bankrupt over the next 3 years.

Both the old Ridings shopping center and the newer Trinity one are virtually dead, with various economic depressions, Covid and the current oil crisis caused by Russia, America and the Emirates trying to out-psycho one another, and no one in government or the private sector willing to lower their business rates and rents. They'd rather see everyone go bankrupt than accept short term losses like everyone else. It's a very short-sighted and ultimately self-damaging attitude, but not uncommon, sadly.

The shopping center is nowhere as clean as it should be, the design making the small semi-roofed area act like a wind tunnel in the winter months and the rain making the uncovered areas slippy for the wrong shoes

As for how it compares to other centers, it's clearly very dull and it's dying from a thousand cuts. People don't have the money any more. It's all gone to the rich and powerful. We're entering an era of austerity not seen since World War II, and no one seems to care, with poor and often off-hand service doing nothing to make one love it.

Update July 2022: It looks like HMV are moving in to the center. I'm surprised to see them expanding again, particularly into a very dead shopping center during the worst recession ever. But maybe they got very good business rates and rents because of all of that. They've not opened yet, but the sign is...

Compact, nearly all single level shopping centre with good parking that's free for 2 hours with a £10+ purchase at Sainsbury's. Also good bus links as it's opposite Wakefield bus station. It has a small H&M, Topshop, Dorothy Perkins, New Look, decent Debenhams plus a good Superdrug. Also has a Next, Pandora, Roman, Poundland, USC, Body Shop, Lush, Deichman, Clarks, the Works, bakeries and coffee shops, plus a random Barclays.

Post coronavirus (June 2020), Trinity Walk are trying to enforce social distancing and it's not helped by Northern Gas Networks doing upgrade work at the edges of their centre but hey! Atmosphere's not the same post-lockdown but that's not their fault. It's organised but there aren't people shouting at you if you do something wrong so I think that's a nice balance. I am trying to visit weekly to try to support the centre, I would hate for any of these shops not to survive. I feel that Debenhams is at particular risk and when I visited (27/06/20), New Look hadn't...