When it comes to planning and development in the city, Peterborough’s public sector bodies have pulled their socks up in recent years, finds Stacey Meadwell
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f 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.
23 February 2013 “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