TIFs and VIPs on the south coast? Is this some sort of Hampshire answer to MIPIM? Certainly, the boats and yachts would imply so but, no, this is masterplan talk – Southampton and Portsmouth masterplan talk.
The friendly rivals have both launched their city visions this year, with aspirations for development and investment over the £1bn mark, thousands of jobs, business, retail and leisure space, as well as thousands of homes (see panels).
Both are long-term proposals – 15 years plus – but how do you move things forward when public and private sector finances are not in great shape and the economy is showing little signs of improvement?
Portsmouth’s first tack is infrastructure – bridges, motorway junctions, park-and-ride and a new road in the city centre.
These projects will, funding permitting, be phased over the next six years and the council has explored all waters for sources of money to help.
It has already secured £11m from the Department of Transport for the first project, a bridge over the railway at Cosham. A decision on further funding from the DoT is expected by the end of the year.
A new £16m city centre road would enable the long-planned Northern Quarter development to go ahead. To date, the usual section 106 contributions from developer Centros, coupled with tough market conditions, have rendered the scheme unviable.
Kathy Wadsworth, regeneration strategic director at Portsmouth city council, says a lot of work has been done to explore the viability of tax increment financing.
The problem is the government proposal for TIF.
“When Northern Quarter is built, the additional business rates would pay for the road in 10 years – if we are allowed to keep it,” says Wadsworth. “At the moment, the Treasury can review it in 2020 and we’d only get 50%.”
It is a problem because the development is anticipated to complete in 2018, giving only two years of certainty on the rates return. The council is making a case to have a red line drawn around the development site and designated as an accelerated growth area with rates revenue protected for 15 years to pay for the road.
“If we don’t do that, we can’t build the road,” says Wadsworth.
Southampton has also looked at TIFs to enable development in the city centre. Tim Levenson, head of city development and economy at Southampton city council, says: “We did a quick and dirty calculation for the city centre and found we couldn’t raise enough.”
TIFs have not been ruled out for future infrastructure projects, but in the meantime, like Portsmouth, the council has been fishing for money from other sources such as the regional growth fund.
“Southampton isn’t a rich council and we don’t have many assets, but we do see the importance of getting a vision in place. Where we haven’t got the money we try and get it,” he says.
The council’s vision has identified what it calls seven VIP sites (Portsmouth has three areas of focus) and has assigned in-house development teams to work on realising its aspirations – whether through planning, procurement or facilitating private sector involvement.
For example, a new planning application for Hammerson’s Watermark WestQuay leisure-led scheme is expected in the new year and the council has also been working with the administrator of the Bargate Centre, which is now rumoured to have a new owner.
But while the councils have placed a lot of importance on their masterplans, it is going to have to be all hands on deck if they are to come to full fruition, and that means including the private sector.
Gavin Hall, director at Savills in Southampton, says: “The masterplan is the first step and it is a marketing tool. But we need to raise the profile of the two cities. Is the Solent the right brand?
“No-one outside the cities knows where the Solent is, whereas Portsmouth and Southampton are names that get taken around the world because of their connections with sport and cruises.”
Hall does not believe it is a case of just attracting developers: “All these great plans for offices, we need to get occupiers into the cities, not necessarily developers. The cities need to work together on that.”
James Brounger, managing director south central region at CBRE, agrees that the masterplan is an important starting point: “Schemes with strong fundamentals will be the first to take off but they won’t happen without an occupier in place.”
It is something the councils are aware of. Portsmouth’s Wadsworth says: “We can’t stimulate development by building it ourselves, but what we can do is attract companies by making an attractive area and having a workforce with the right skills.”
What makes a good masterplan?
David Ross, design director at Keppie Design, says the town centre will not exist in its current form anymore and in times of austerity it is right to look ahead longer term.
“A masterplan is potentially a 15-20 year vision, but cities evolve and that’s the lifetime of three or four councils,” he says.
Back in the 1990s, mistakes were made with short-term plans, often shopping centre-centric, and a lot of work is being done to repair that damage.
“Lots of lessons have been learnt over the last 20 years about planning policy that hasn’t worked in creating people-led places,” he says, citing Manchester as an example of how it can be done well, creating a genuinely vibrant, mixed-use city centre.
The northern city has had the benefit of stability at the top in the council’s chief executive, Sir Howard Bernstein.
So what makes a good masterplan? He says you need a strong local authority that stands up for the vision but is equally flexible and cognisant of economic and cultural changes.
Infrastructure, connectivity and public spaces should also be designed to cope with the growth predicted in the plan and do not generalise. “If you generalise and make a community out of one type of grouping, it isn’t going to work,” he says.
Portsmouth masterplan in brief
Jobs created 16,270
Economic benefit £700m-£1bn
Homes created 5,000
Key projects Tipner Road junction £30m
Tipner redevelopment £130m
Bridge to Port Solent £20m
City centre road £30m
Northern Quarter £270m
Dunsbury Hill Farm £28m
Seafront strategy £100m
Flood defence £80m
Three main areas of focus
• Commercial Road shopping area – retail
• Station Square & Station Street – business hub
• Guildhall – leisure, early evening entertainment
Source: Portsmouth city council
Southampton masterplan in brief
Jobs 23,000
Development £2.7bn
1.9m sq ft retail
2.7m sq ft offices
5,000 homes
2,000 hotel beds
Seven “VIP” sites
• Station – office quarter
• Royal pier – international gateway mixed-use
• Itchen riverside – residential & leisure
• Heart of city – retail & leisure
• Fruit & veg market – mixed-use
• Cultural quarter
• Southampton University – education, business and conference
Source: Southampton city council
