Arriving in Stockport is not a pleasant experience. Struggling through a disorientating subterranean tangle of tunnels, you emerge onto the concrete backside of the Grand Central leisure scheme. Dodging the half-term traffic of pushchairs and groups of teenagers across the River Mersey, Stockport’s prime retail pitch quickly rears into view – the 350,000 sq ft Merseyway shopping centre. At 40 years old, it is distinctly middle-aged and its banner – “Merseyway: Stockport’s Shopping Centre” – could soon be outdated.
Stockport council plans a £500m facelift of the town centre to address its flagging image. Called Future Stockport, the plan is a 15-year vision that will encompass transportation, public spaces, and city-style living. The jewel in the crown is Bridgefield, a 540,000 sq ft retail-led, mixed-use scheme that will double the town’s shopping space. Development manager of the Future Stockport team, George Perrin, is putting it mildly when he says: “We really wanted to go for it, rather than just tinker around the edges.”
Over 100 particulars were sent out and nine serious expressions of interest received for the Bridgefield scheme. The council has shortlisted Lend Lease, AMEC and Simons Developments to deliver the scheme. The preferred developer will be confirmed next month.
But with more than half-a-million sq ft of retail on the drawing board, is the council in danger of lifting one part of the centre by dropping another?
Over the past five years, Stockport has slipped from 39th in retail analyst CACI’s rankings to number 56. What is more, it has the third worst prospects in the North West, just in front of St Helens and Birkenhead. It is forecast to lose £23.5m of spend over the next 10 years as neighbouring towns improve their retail offers.
Enter Bridgefield: a 20-acre site adjacent to the M60 and the River Goyt, which the council says could encompass the town’s Debenhams and Sainsbury’s. Land ownership is fragmented, but the council already owns a “substantial part” and it will flex its CPO powers if necessary.
CPO powers
And despite recent headlines in local newspapers highlighting £10m of local authority budget cuts and 80 job losses, the council dismisses worries about its commitment to the project. It says the plan has cross-party support, the resources have been earmarked and a town centre/M60 Gateway team set up.
The council hopes to be on site within four years, with the entire project expected to take around a decade to deliver.
Ken Gunn, director of CACI’s property consulting group, predicts a 60% uplift in Stockport’s attractiveness as a result of Bridgefield. “That’s pretty spectacular, and rare,” he says. “For a developer, it is a fantastic opportunity. They’ll be clamouring to do it.”
But there is a problem, he adds. CACI forecasts that Stockport’s town-centre spend will increase by a more modest 40% in the 10-year period of Bridgefield’s construction. “That 20% difference means you are drawing on other parts of the town,” says Gunn. “There will have to be underlying growth in consumer spending, or you’ll be cannibalising existing centres. I’d be very worried if I was responsible for Merseyway.”
Merseyway’s owner, Stockport Holdings, is keen to focus on recent successes at the centre. Last year, it registered 14.5m shoppers – a record and a 5% increase on the previous year. But Richard Paxton, the centre’s director, admits there are concerns. “Stockport Holdings has a large investment here, and we do not want to see that damaged.”
Although Stockport Holdings did not make it through to the final three shortlisted to develop Bridgefield, Paxton adds: “We have a role to play, and we want to be part of the Bridgefield development, and we own several strategic pieces of land on the site.” In fact, Stockport Holdings owns 18,000 sq ft of property on the Bridgefield site.
In the meantime, the company says it will concentrate on making the most of Merseyway’s floorspace. “Merseyway is prime pitch, and Stockport Holdings is not going to want to kill the golden goose,” says Paxton.
The council seems to agree. Future Stockport will bring much-needed, larger floorplates that Merseyway cannot provide, says Perrin. But he admits the problem of integrating the two centres has “begun to exercise” his mind. “We don’t want two separate centres, with one that is a discount house. Killing Merseyway achieves nothing,” he says.
Retail imbalance
Work will concentrate on linking the two pitches, and money will be spent across the entire town centre to prevent imbalances arising.
But is there sufficient demand in Stockport to support both centres? Nick Pyman, at Donaldsons, believes there is. “Debenhams has a requirement, Primark wants 50,000 sq ft, and there are a number of other biggies out there,” he says. Pointing to zone A rents of £70 per sq ft on Princes Street, compared with £190 per sq ft in Merseyway, he says: “So we might see demand levelling off in the short term but in the long term we’ll see the overall value improve throughout the retail pitch.” He predicts prime zone A rents could reach £230 per sq ft over the 10-year period of Bridgefield’s development.
Indeed, a recent study for the council by Cushman & Wakefield showed that Stockport would need 750,000 sq ft of retail over the next five years just to retain its ranking.
More town-centre homes will also help create demand, attracting residents that travel elsewhere to shop, says Henrietta Achampong on the council’s economic development team.CACI’s Gunn offers some advice. “Capacity analysis is a planners’ game, but it’s not enough to support development. Stockport is a big place but does it need more shops or just better ones?”The choice of developer, to be announced in just over two weeks, will obviously influence the outcome. Then the real work to lift Stockport’s status begins.
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Predictions for growth over 10 years Today 56th in CACI rankings. Town-centre expenditure, £450m 2015, do nothing Shopping population 159,000, expenditure £158m Change in expenditure over 10 years, 7% Market share of total possible catchment, 9% 2015, what happens if 740,000 sq ft is built? Shopping population 232,000, expenditure £616m Impact on expenditure owing to development: 46% Change in expenditure over 10 years: 36% Market share of total possible catchment: 8.9% |
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Source: CACI |
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The plans Future Stockport is a detailed 15-year vision for the town. The town-centre masterplan, which was adopted in February 2005, includes: ● Expansion of shopping and leisure facilities, including 540,000 sq ft Bridgefield scheme ● Regeneration of ASDA’s Knightsbridge facility into a 70,000 sq ft food store, some A3 and residential ● 162,000 sq ft of business space ● 2,000 jobs within the plan area ● 1,000 city-style homes ● Transport interchange, including a 500ft travelator between the bus and railway station ● New plaza at Mersey Square and a tree-lined St Peter’s Square ● A library and cultural centre spanning the A6 |
