WHEN artist impressions of the new Lychgate shopping centre were unveiled, 15 months ago, we confessed that our pulses hadn't been set racing.

Perhaps our hopes were too high. After all, the old edifice was a monument to the 60s period which infamously saw the so-called Rape of Worcester, the demolition of much of that old quarter of the city.

It was a misguided period, frustratingly close to the point where the post-war brave new world began to run out of concrete, but before society learnt that heritage reached beyond major buildings.

With the scaffolding stripped away from the High Street development, we'll all be able to decide whether our fears were well-founded or not.

For what it's worth, our initial reaction is that it bears a second look.

It might be damning with faint praise to say that it couldn't have been much worse than what went before, but we suspect most observers will feel the same.

Who knows, though. Like the city's Golden Lion Arcade, once it has the vibrancy of everyday life milling around its new stores, perhaps we'll come to regard it with a fondness which its jarring predecessor never enjoyed.

We hope so. We can't afford to spend another 40 years looking at an architectural monstrosity. There won't be a third chance.

The new Lychgate must enhance the city from the word go - even if the decision to rename it as Cathedral Plaza remains a crass misjudgement of what heritage means to historic places like the Faithful City.