Chester prides itself on being old, but its regeneration policy is all about being new, new, new.
Chief among the changers is the city’s development quango, Chester Renaissance.
Now revamped and refocused, the public-private sector partnership has a new chairman, former Northwest Development Agency chief executive Steve Broomhead.
A new board has been recruited to push the council’s aim of transforming Chester from a tourist coach-stop into a boutique city, offering a mix of culture and business.
Simultaneously, the council is investing in its new culture-first agenda for the city. In the background, it is getting to grips with the long-standing embarrassment of stalled plans for a 400,000 sq ft retail scheme at Northgate (see below).
To cap it all, next year will see the completion of an ambitious city strategy, the One City Plan.
But the keystone is Chester Renaissance. The organisation was savaged in a report on regeneration and economic development in Chester presented to the council by the Urban Land Institute in March. The institute’s report said Chester Renaissance did not provide a proper public-private sector partnership and “is not set up in a way to achieve this objective”.
Underperforming
Chester Renaissance chairman Shane Flynn resigned in March 2010.
Herbert Manley, Cheshire West and Chester council’s executive member for prosperity, suggests Chester Renaissance was underperforming because it was detached from business and economic realities in the city.
“The board will have greater direction than it had before,” he says. “Before, the leadership was fairly distant, but I think Steve Broomhead will help us to deliver something directed.”
Cheshire West and Chester council has agreed sufficient funding for two more years. The board’s attention will be focused on the 500,000 sq ft office redevelopment being promoted by Muse Developments and a £40m scheme to convert the former Odeon cinema site into a theatre.
Chester Renaissance chief executive Rita Waters says: “The announcement of the Odeon becoming the preferred site for the theatre will now see that development speed up. A number of under-used heritage assets are being explored by Chester Renaissance.”
So long as progress on the Northgate retail scheme is stalled, hopes are pinned on the business quarter being developed by Muse. In August, the company announced that it had acquired a 3.5-acre development site from Lloyds Banking Group.
Positive attempt
With a development value of £115m, the site comprises the existing Lloyds Bank Premier House building and adjacent car-parking land.
Phil Mayall, development director at Muse, applauds the changes at Chester Renaissance. “We feel the changes are a positive attempt to ensure that the aims and objectives of the One City Plan are delivered,” he says.
Muse is preparing a planning application, which it expects to submit early next year. Construction work could begin in 2013.
Is Chester finally putting its recent history behind it? The next two years will be the test.
Northgate: new timeline
Success has many parents, but failure is an orphan. That could serve as the motto for Chester’s ill-fated 400,000 sq ft Northgate retail scheme.
Fourteen years after the retail redevelopment of the Northgate site was first seriously proposed, the scheme seems no nearer. Plenty are prepared to point the finger of blame – local politics is alive with accusations and counter-accusations – but Cheshire West and Chester council says it is finally getting to grips with the problems.
Council executive member Herbert Manley says there will be a new development timeline for developer ING to stick to, with the threat of losing its preferred developer status if it does not.
There will also be a new emphasis on leisure, with a slightly reduced focus on retail, to fit in with the council’s newly energised plans to become a major cultural centre. Talks with ING and its partner, Land Securities, are in progress, say council chiefs.
In the meantime, the council is pressing ahead with parts of the Northgate scheme, including the Market Hall on Princess Street.
A report prepared by DTZ suggested reducing the size of the hall from 38,000 sq ft to 25,000 sq ft to create an increased sense of “bustle” – a proposal the council is supporting.
Last year, ING and LandSec were granted an extension on the planning consent granted in 2007. They now have until 2013 to take action.
One City Plan: boutique blueprint
The final version of Chester’s One City Plan will be published in January.
Drafted by GVA, the document – the result of joint working between Chester Renaissance and Cheshire West and Chester council – provides a 15-year blueprint for the city with emphasis on cultural and commercial change.
The plan’s insistence on differentiating Chester from its giant neighbours, Liverpool and Manchester, provides the key to its aims. Effectively, Chester will become a boutique city, offering a mix of business and culture of a kind the big cities cannot provide.
Responses to the draft plan are generally supportive, and the strong likelihood is that the final plan will closely resemble the draft. Cheshire West and Chester council has already proved willing to back the plan with cash. Earlier this year, it agreed to buy the city’s former Odeon cinema from its Barnsley-based owner, the Brook Group.
A £40m project will see the art deco building on Northgate Street converted into a theatre.
