“ I would keep the spires.
There need to be some sort of town square, to break up the extremely dull High Street, which is dominated by traffic.
Open up the space around and behind the spires, for seats, temporary retail stalls, and coffee-shop outdoor seating. Turn this land over to be adopted by the council, but with extra maintenance and cleaning done by The Spires as a planning condition.
In return for clearing the land back to the back-building-line of adjacent properties, let the developers have more space further into the development, with greater height and bulk if necessary. ”