Captain Basildon has retired. The cool blue superhero of regeneration in the Essex town turned heads in 2005. Today, older and wiser, he has hung up his Lycra and now has a desk job with Basildon council.
It is a shame, really, because the town could do with a return visit from dynamic Captain Basildon as doubts surface about the deliverability of a £1bn town centre regeneration.
The massive plans by developer Barratt Wilson Bowden include a market, college and thousands of homes. But it is under fire from the Labour opposition on Basildon council – an opposition that could take control in the May 2014 local elections.
The Basildon project to revamp the former new town’s core has been in preparation for the past seven years. In 2005, Captain Basildon leant some glitz to the first consultation efforts, and this spring saw a second wave of public involvement.
In the meantime, boom has turned into bust, and the search for a development partner has gone through some rocky patches. A long list of potential partners included British Land, which owns the town’s 730,000 sq ft Eastgate shopping centre. But BL – regarded as the frontrunner – withdrew from the contest, as did all the other contenders, leaving Barratt Wilson Bowden the sole bidder. A shortlist of one produced the only result it could, and in 2010 BWB was appointed.
This September, council leaders are expected to approve the final version of the masterplan. The draft envisaged 430,000 sq ft of retail and leisure space including an 8-12-screen cinema, 270,000 sq ft of office space, a 150-bedroom hotel and the rearrangement of public buildings, including a college building. There would also be 3,650 homes.
Both opposition parties on Conservative-controlled Basildon council say they want to see regeneration and investment in the town’s as yet non-existent evening economy, but both have doubts about the project as proposed.
Concerns focus on moving Basildon College from Nethermayne to the town centre as well as the complexities of relocating the market, bus station, post office and fire and ambulance stations. Opponents do not like the suggested sites, and they do not know from where the money will come.
The £38m Basildon Sporting Village development, backed by the council, has left the coffers bare, critics say.
Nigel Smith is leader of the Labour opposition on Basildon council. If his party does as well in 2014, as it did in the 2012 elections, BWB will have to listen carefully to what he says
“We’ve always had concerns about the deliverability of parts of the masterplan, and the desirability of other parts,” he says. “We’d very much like to see regeneration and some investment in the evening economy. It’s ridiculous, for instance, that you can’t get a meal in Basildon town centre after 7pm. But what’s on offer is very piecemeal. And if there is funding for the public sector parts of the plan, I’m not aware of it. My fear is that the council will deliver only a small part of the scheme and important, but less commercially appealing elements, will not go ahead for some time.
“If we take control of the council in 2014 we’ll revisit the masterplan. We’re not happy with the direction,” he warns.
Basildon council and DTZ, its advisers, insist that the project is deliverable. Ken Baikie, Basildon’s property and regeneration manager, says the slow progress since 2005 was largely thanks to a lack of commercial input, a problem Barratt Wilson Bowden is putting right.
“We now have a commercial partner with a big hand in shaping the masterplan, and that is a big difference from the past,” he explains.
The college’s move will soon be agreed, and then moving the existing market can be completed. The bus, fire and ambulance stations do not have to be relocated in the first phase of the plan up to 2017.
Baikie says: “We have to make sure that what comes forward is deliverable. There’s no leisure space, practically no food and drink in the town, and Wilson Bowden sees that as a development opportunity.”
Hopes turn on the council backing a leisure first phase, due for delivery before 2017 (see below).
“We know we have a financial gap to fill on the cinema and restaurant development to unlock the sites, on land which is not in our ownership. By autumn we hope we’ll have a clear way forward,” says Baikie.
Even so, there are still issues to overcome, the most conspicuous being the relationship between the new retail and leisure space and BL. The company said in 2008 that it was “reviewing its commitment” to regeneration in the town and might sell the Eastgate shopping centre for £120m. In 2009, it withdrew its much-tipped bid to become the council’s preferred developer, and has remained tight-lipped ever since.
A BL spokeswoman told Estates Gazette that nobody was available to comment. However, the BL mood music suggests it will work with BWB, and that plans to sell the centre have gone very cold, if not quite completely frozen.
Getting regeneration projects off the ground has never been easy – and it often seems like only a super hero could achieve it. Captain Basildon, where are you now?
Getting started
A cinema and restaurant development financially-backed by Basildon council is likely to be the first phase of the £1bn town centre redevelopment. But do not expect a start on site until 2014 or 2015.
Tim Johnson, senior director for regeneration at DTZ and an adviser to the council, says the council is “looking creatively” at ways to take a long-term interest in the town centre sites concerned. “We’re very much at the stage of looking at options and the risk-return profile,” he says.
The council confirms that it is working on financing plans, but cannot yet go into details.
Chelmsford
The fate of a second £1bn Essex redevelopment hangs in the balance.
Chelmsford planners are to consider hundreds of objections to a revised outline planning application for the Beaulieu Park area at a meeting this autumn.
Although the plan, which includes 3,600 homes and 620,000 sq ft of commercial space, has enjoyed the council’s enthusiastic backing, some locals are not so sure.
Countryside Properties and its development partner, London & Quadrant, submitted revised plans for the 604-acre site in January which they claim are purely technical. Roads, a railway station and schools are all promised. A 400,000 sq ft business park will be created around the station.
Planners are expected to consider the outline planning application in September, with detailed applications for the first phase of housing to follow, ready for a start on site in 2013.
Cllr Neil Gulliver, Chelmsford’s cabinet member for regeneration, says: “We’re told that the business park is the second most desirable commercial location in the country, so that’s exciting for us, but one of the unknowns is funding. We will have to wait and see. Negotiations are quite intense ahead of September’s meeting. We’ll have to assess deliverability, and although I’d hope to see a new business park as soon as possible, it all comes down to finance, even for big developers such as Countryside.”
A Countryside spokesman said: “The scheme is viable and deliverable. It looks likely at this stage that the 400,000 sq ft business park will be delivered in the latter stages of development, possibly five years after the start on site.”
