| the south west
QUAYSIDE AND BLACKFRIARS REGENERATION GLOUCESTER
T
he regeneration of this substantially vacant and neglected sector of Gloucester began a few years ago by the completion of a Memorandum of Understanding between Gloucestershire County Council and Gloucester City Council to facilitate a collaborative approach to the regeneration of the Quayside and Blackfriars sites owned by the 2 councils. The Blackfriars site had been vacant except for a surface car park for a couple of decades and the Quayside site was to be vacated by the refurbishment and recladding of the adjoining County Council’s Shire Hall into which the staff from the Quayside buildings were to be relocated.
Following the announcement of a central government regeneration facility funding, a successful bid for £4.13 million from the Gfirst LEP was secured by the partners in 2015. These funds enabled the Councils to carry out all of the necessary investigations on a historic part of the city. These allowed the councils to remove many impediments to development including archaeologically sensitive remains (which included a scheduled ancient monument), to clear the remaining buildings from the sites, carry out all of the environmental, contamination, and historic investigations with the objective of making the sites “shovel ready” for development. The
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planning position was also significantly improved by the work required to submit an application for a Local Development Order (LDO).
Following these investigations together with the provision of appropriate expert reports on flooding waste noise highways historic context and flooding the LDO was granted in April 2017. The LDO is a planning approach designed to provide confidence to bring forward development schemes by secured the principles and massing of the redevelopment of the area and approving a range of acceptable uses. In this case the LDO focussed on a variety of residential uses (including student accommodation) together with a medical facility, community uses, and appropriate parking provision. The grant of the LDO will together with the preparation of the reports has de-risked the sites which will stimulate confidence to embark on a viable development schemes within the area. The concept has recently been validated by a successful application for a £20 million scheme (on part of the Blackfriars site) which is being developed for a 295 unit student unit scheme to support the expanding Gloucester University. The development by City Heart will be completed in August 2018 to support the expansion of the University in the shape of the new Business School at their Oxtalls campus.
Demolition of the remaining buildings on the Quayside site is now underway, and the programme of further archaeological investigation and decontamination of the site will be completed over the next few months. After completion of these works the site will be available for immediate development with all of the risks and obstacles to development either removed or quantified.
The Councils are now seeking to engage with developers seeking to develop a challenging but rewarding sector of the City with exciting new extensions to Gloucester Docks, the Bakers Quay development and the proposed redevelopment of the former Gloucester Prison all on site or in planning. For further details please contact John Kulasek - Senior Development Valuer at Gloucestershire County Council
john.kulasek@gloucestershire.gov.uk Tel 01452 328860 or Mark Foyn - Property Manager at Gloucester City Council
mark.foyn@
gloucester.gov.uk Tel 01452 396271
COMMERCIAL PROPERTY MONTHLY 2017
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