Driving and sustaining the move to urban areas

Organisations such as national regeneration agency English Partnerships has made “creating sustainable communities” one of its core business objectives. Retail has a large part to play in the sustainability of neighbourhoods as well as traditional towns and city centres. Across the country we’re seeing major developments underway, from Sheffield’s new retail quarter, Bradford’s Broadway shopping centre, Great Yarmouth’s St Bure harbour quay residential scheme, to Milton Keynes’ Sainsbury’s Development, and Corby’s Willow Place shopping centre.

At the local level, new retail development is also making an important contribution in housing market renewal areas in places such as North Staffordshire, Sandwell and Blackburn.

What these developments have in common is the fact that they are all aimed at creating vibrant, integrated and functional places where people can connect with the wider community with service providers and businesses. Driving these developments are successful partnerships between the public and private sector.

For urban communities to be truly sustainable, they need to be created for mixed use – affordable housing, business space, transport interchanges, shops and leisure facilities. The well-documented trend for out-of-town retail developments and their detrimental effect on our urban centres has made the resurgence of city and local centre retail and mixed use developments even more critical.

People need choices about how they live, work, shop and spend their free time and that “how” is changing. Nowadays, shopping is a favourite leisure activity – but people don’t just want shops in isolation, they want an integrated experience – cafes, restaurants, bars, and well-landscaped public areas where they can saunter, relax, and watch life go by. English Partnerships’ aim is to help give people those choices, so they don’t just get in their cars and drive out of town. They can be tempted to stay in the centre – as long as that centre offers a quality place with the right amenities and environment. Once considered unfashionable, urban centres are increasingly becoming a top location for business enterprise – currently, about 75 percent of our population lives in urban areas and nearly 80 percent of people work in them (source: the 2007 State of English Cities Database, DCLG).

A good example of a retail-driven mixed urban development at local level is in Central Milton Keynes, home to the Sainsbury’s Development. Managed by Milton Keynes Partnership, this £10m mixed use scheme will incorporate a 10,000 sq ft state-of-the-art supermarket, underground car parking, with 402 apartments and townhouses being built above – 30 percent of which will be affordable housing. Additional plans include further retail and leisure space, and nearby, the new “hub” development provides a wide range of restaurants, cafes and hotels.

Urban Regeneration Companies (URCs) are facilitating new retail, leisure and mixed use development to similar effect.

URCs and their Economic Development Company (EDC) counterparts have achieved success in encouraging private investment to an area of economic need, while also exerting influence at local authority level. This helps ensure a high quality revitalised urban area with a sound infrastructure, which responds to the needs of its local population. It also enables all regeneration activities in the region to be linked, thereby driving forward its economy in a coherent way.

Creative Sheffield EDC (formerly Sheffield One URC) is overseeing transformation of the city’s jumbled and strung out shopping hub, which literally is emerging from the doldrums since its retail decline in the 1970s, compounded by the success of out-of-town Meadowhall shopping centre. Exciting plans for the New Retail Quarter, bolstered by £40m worth of funding from English Partnerships, include 100 new quality shops, cafes, bars, restaurants, residential units, and 2,200 parking spaces, to match the increasing demands of its increasingly wealthy population, and create a significant shopping centre at its heart.

Investment from English Partnerships into the land, infrastructure and public buildings at Kings Waterfront in Liverpool, for instance, has complemented funding from public partners and helped boost private sector confidence in Liverpool. The single largest development on the Liverpool City Centre Waterfront, it is delivering a visitor destination of international quality, combining arena, conference and exhibition facilities with residential, hotel, office, retail, leisure, community and open space uses. The nearby recently opened Liverpool One shopping centre, which, when completed, will be linked to the waterfront redevelopment via a pedestrian walkway, is set to benefit enormously from the increased numbers of visitors to the city as well as create a new retail and leisure destination in its own right.

In Corby, Northants, residents have cited a new shopping centre as top of their wish list for the town. In response to this, North Northants URC is overseeing redevelopment of Corby’s retail core in partnership with landowners Land Securities. The construction and Autumn 2007 opening of phase one of Corby’s £40m Willow Place shopping centre – part of a wider ambitious regeneration programme for the town – is well on the way to becoming a focal attraction in the area. A further 300,000 sq ft of retail space including an 80,000 sq ft department store is planned. This, together with the recent planning permission granted for 28,000 new homes – one of the largest planning applications ever submitted in the UK – should help ensure that the anticipated population increase this will bring (up to double the current 50,000) will allow retailers to take advantage of a possible future spend of £180m.

They have gone one step further. During the shopping centre’s development phase, the Willow Place Community Fund was established. Providing grants to a wide range of community initiatives – including youth organisations, schools, charities, sports clubs and welfare bodies – the Fund will make a significant contribution to ensuring that this shopping hub helps create a real sense of place, and leaves a lasting impression on its visitors.

Engaging public support and winning buy-in from the local community is key to ensuring the future success of any integrated large-scale development project – as demonstrated at Skelmersdale town centre in West Lancashire. A 2007 public consultation and survey on proposals involving English Partnerships, West Lancashire District Council and appointed developer St Modwen to revitalise its town centre with a new high street, more shops and improved leisure facilities was undertaken by West Lancashire District Council alongside English Partnerships and regeneration specialists St Modwen. Feedback from the 2,000 people who took part suggested overwhelming support for the proposals, and proof that retail development cannot take place in isolation; 91 percent agreed that the new town centre should include a new community centre, library, college, cinema, bars and restaurants, sports centre and swimming pool, new shops, plus new houses and flats.

Of course, retail development is part of long-term regeneration; creating well thought-out, quality and desirable centres of commercial and civic activity out of an existing, often tired, infrastructure doesn’t happen overnight. Bradford’s town centre redevelopment and public realm improvements are a good case in point. Being overseen by Bradford Centre Regeneration URC, and including the Broadway Shopping Centre – earmarked to include 171 apartments – this is a ten year project which will deliver benefits for decades to come.

The Government’s commitment to the regeneration of our towns and cities and the renewal of rundown neighbourhoods is greatly assisted by the role of retail and related leisure development – creating a sense of place and a meaningful focus for local communities and visitors alike.