Midlands-based Stannifer has taken the role of lead developer in the consortium behind the £200m Broadway retail scheme in Bradford.
Stannifer had been negotiating with Caddick Developments and Magellan Estates for a substantial stake in the consortium – known as The Forster Square Development Partnership – for several months.
The council is understood to have made it clear that it would prefer Stannifer to take control of the project.
The move follows the council’s decision to approve the 500,000 sq ft (46,450 sq m) Broadway scheme, despite having reservations about the proposals.
It did so to meet a deadline for £10m of European and other public sector funding for site clearance and transport infrastructure.
But the planning application has now been referred to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), which is known to share doubts about the quality of the scheme with Yorkshire Forward, members of the council and Bradford’s Urban Regeneration Company (URC).
Yorkshire Forward and the URC have refused to contribute any funds to the development of Broadway I if it goes ahead in its present form.
But they are willing to help finance a second phase of Broadway.
CABE summed up the feelings of the scheme’s critics in a submission to the council’s planning chief:
“The scheme as proposed appears to be rather monolithic in urban design terms and not of a high architectural quality…this (scheme) in no way measures up to the standards being sought by current examples such as those in Liverpool and Sheffield.”
Work on the site, including demolition of 80 buildings and road construction, must now start by the end of the year or Bradford will lose the funding from the EDRF, Local Transport Plan and Transport 2000.
References: EGi News 19/09/03
