If Peterborough’s public sector – the city council and Opportunity Peterborough – had been given a school report in 2008, it would have read “could do better”.
Back then it had a reputation for creating grand plans without proper consideration of market forces, and new chief executive Stephen Compton admitted that the city had flatlined. A new city centre plan drawn up by EDAW was going to change all that.
Five years on, Compton has gone and there are few visible examples of EDAW’s plans having come to fruition. Most notable is the £15m spent on public realm improvements in the city centre and a station revamp.
Behind the scenes is where more has been done. EDAW’s plans have now been integrated and updated into a newly adopted core strategy and planning policy, and the Development Plan Document, which puts the meat on the bone of the strategy document, went to public consultation last month.
There has also been a restructure, and responsibility for regeneration and economic development has been redistributed between Opportunity Peterborough and the council.
Richard Kay, group manager strategic planning at Peterborough city council, says that Opportunity Peterborough had quite a lot of influence over policy and the EDAW plan was jumping the gun.
“There was a criticism of Opportunity Peterborough racing ahead without having the statutory framework. You can’t just prepare a plan and go for it,” he says.
There was no wrongdoing on the part of Opportunity Peterborough, just a case of not getting its ducks in a row. In hindsight, its remit was too big and in the past few years there has been a refocus. The agency’s urban regeneration function has been taken over by the council, led by head of growth and economic development Andrew Edwards, while Opportunity Peterborough’s remit is now one of inward investment.
If the DPD is adopted at the end of the year, coupled with the core strategy, it means all the building blocks will be in place to push forward with regeneration aspirations.
The search is already under way for a joint venture partner to develop the Riverside Opportunity Area – 100 acres of land on the north and south banks of the River Nene. It is a project that has been on the cards in some form for 20 years.
The council has been buying the land and is looking for the private sector to put money and development skills into the equation. It will be predominantly residential but will also include retail, leisure and cultural space.
Edwards says the plans are not fixed and the focus is very much on what is viable. “The Riverside Opportunity Area is important because it is the tipping point. Once we get that going, once people see meaningful progress, then people will see that Peterborough is serious,” he says.
“However, it has to be taken forward at a realistic pace. There is a big gap at times between aspiration and what is deliverable and we have to make sure that what we are planning is deliverable.”
By way of example, he points to the plans five years ago to build flats in the city centre, but says that demand has gone. Riverside is a £1bn, 20-year project; market forces change and for that reason Edwards says an ongoing dialogue with the private sector is important so that plans can evolve and respond.
The council hopes to have a private sector partner in place by the end of the year, with development starting in 2014.
Its new approach to planning and development is already yielding positive results. Richard Croft, associate director at Henry Davidson Developments, which is developing a mixed-use district centre at Stanground, says: “For firms looking to invest in Peterborough, the good news is that the city adopts a pragmatic approach to planning. Councils all too often get bad press for unnecessary delays and costs, so it is good to recognise Peterborough as a city getting it right.”
This is good news, but it will take more positive results to convince the city’s property sector of a turnaround. Savills director William Rose says that if he was to write a school report on Peterborough’s public sector bodies now, it would read “improving” but “stay focused”.
What, no offices?
While agents admit that the public sector’s performance is improving, there is still frustration about the focus on residential.
Martin Blackwell of Blackwell Consulting says Peterborough’s disadvantage now is the proportion of office stock it has out of town compared with in town, at a time when more occupiers want space in city centres.
He says: “The council will need to pump some prime office stock into a central location. There has been reasonable take-up of existing stock at rents of £8-£10 per sq ft, sometimes higher, but at those sort of levels you aren’t going to get new buildings.”
Out of town, the council has won a gold star. Last year, IT firm Kelway relocated into a 30,000 sq ft new BREEAM excellent building on Cygnet Park. William Rose, a director at Savills, says it is a good example of the council working with a developer to deliver a building quickly.
He says there are further out-of-town prelet opportunities, with two unnamed requirements of around 40,000 sq ft and 15,000 sq ft, but in town space remains a problem: “There are a number of buildings coming back to the market but they are 10-15 years old.”
Offices feature in the city council’s wider regeneration plans but in the areas earmarked it does not own much land and can therefore only be a facilitator rather than a driver of what happens.
stacey.meadwell@estatesgazette.com
