Eden, High Wycombe  Eden, known more popularly as the Eden Centre, is a shopping and entertainment complex in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire in the south east of England. With a floor area of , it is the 32nd largest shopping centre in the United Kingdom and the largest in the surrounding area. The centre has 107 shops, a bowling alley, a cinema, a library (which opened on 3 June 2008), parking for 1,600 cars on site, and car parking other car parks available nearby. The complex is part of a major regeneration of High Wycombe in a bid to transform the town into a regional shopping destination. The complex includes a new bus station and 48 residential flats. The shopping centre opened on 13 March 2008, the bus station opening earlier in July 2006. Eden attracted one million visitors within two weeks of opening and regularly attracts over 350,000 visitors per week. Eden formed part of a multi-million programme of investment to transform the town. In 1991, the area later occupied by Eden was known as 'the western desert', and Wycombe District Council placed improving it as a top priority. Before the construction of Eden, the town centre of High Wycombe contained two shopping centres, the Octagon Centre and the Chilterns Shopping Centre. The Octagon which opened in the 1970s was dated and was incorporated into the redevelopment. High Wycombe has a population of 120,257 people and the town centre was not much of an attraction, with shops spread out over a large area. Moreover, the town was seen as being overshadowed by nearby towns with larger shopping centres, such as the Queensmere Observatory (Slough), King Edward Court (Windsor), the Oracle (Reading), the Chimes (Uxbridge), Harlequin Shopping Centre (Watford) and Central Milton Keynes Shopping Centre (Milton Keynes). A new shopping centre was agreed to rejuvenate the town. The development was known as Western Sector, Project Phoenix and TCR (town centre redevelopment), until the name 'Eden' was announced at the annual meeting of Wycombe District Council on 9 May 2005. This name was recommended by marketing consultants DS Emotion, who had been appointed to choose an appropriate name for the development. Letters written to local newspaper "Bucks Free Press" revealed a mixed reaction to the name: some readers felt that it was unrelated to local culture and not inclusive for High Wycombe's ethnic community, but others approved of the name and remarked on the sense of calm it evoked.