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| herts, beds & bucks


SIGNIFICANT INVESTMENT BRINGS BUSINESSES TO HEMEL HEMPSTEAD


new Enterprise Zone? Check. Key gateway to London and excellent transport links? Check. Forward-thinking local authority? Check. Businesses are realising that Hemel Hempstead ticks all the boxes. Earlier this year Capital & Regional real


£


estate investment trust cited “significant investment from the local authority” as one of the main reasons behind its £35.5 million


30 million town centre transformation? Check. A thriving business park within a


acquisition of The Marlowes Shopping Centre in the west Hertfordshire town. Proof indeed that Dacorum Borough Council’s Hemel Evolution regeneration programme had really hit the mark. Having sympathetically restored the


beautiful Hemel Old Town – making it, in the words of Town Centre Partnership Chair Sean Fletcher, “a fantastic place to trade” – Dacorum set its sights on updating the 1950’s New Town legacy.


Extending landscape architect Geoffrey


Jellicoe’s original idea of ‘a city within a park’, the main pedestrianised retail area was given a complete overhaul. The aim was to increase footfall and dwell time by turning shopping into a more social experience. So in came green relaxing spaces with wooden and granite seating, a series of ‘play-on-the-way’ children’s areas, a canopied foodcourt and a new public square with interactive fountain and event stage. A new, modern bus interchange was


also added nearby to improve access to the town centre, and the restoration of the Jellicoe Water Gardens urban oasis began - backed by a successful Heritage Lottery Fund bid. One year on, town centre vacancy rates


almost halved to 9.7% (only slightly above the national average of 9.1%) – and signs indicate they will continue to fall. Local residents certainly appreciate the


improvements. Hemel Hempstead was voted eighth happiest place in the UK by Rightmove’s Happy at Home Index and ranked first for residents’ contentment with where they live. Increasingly, people are saying they will shop there more often,


26 COMMERCIAL PROPERTY MONTHLY 2016


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