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Town centre revamp fears grow
20/ 8/2008
FEARS are mounting that the Council’s entire town centre regeneration plan is on the brink of collapse.
On August 8, Australian property giants Lend Lease pulled out of the £500million Bridgefield redevelopment, dealing a bitter blow to the Council’s Future Stockport masterplan.
Reaction to the news has been gloomy, with some predicting that other developers will follow the company’s lead.
There are four other major private sector developments on the cards in Stockport town centre, totalling hundreds of millions of pounds in investment.
But Councillor Peter Scott, Leader of the Labour group, believes all the regeneration projects are at risk from collapsing under a domino effect.
He said: "It’s falling apart. The developers at Grand Central and at Hopes Carr have both gone very, very quiet and I know the Council has recently been trying to gee them up - but nothing is happening. The real worry about this is that the recession in the 1980s took eight years to recover. So we are not looking at anything happening very quickly. The Council should have seen this coming a lot quicker than they did; other towns have got going much quicker than us."
Councillor Les Jones, Leader of the Conservative Group, said it is up to the council itself to ensure that the other projects now remain on track.
He said: "As a Council we should be seeking to reassure our other development partners that we remain fully committed to regenerating the heart of Stockport. As long as the Council takes pro-active steps and keeps talking to our development partners there is little reason why this should have a negative impact on other projects in the borough."
Terrace Hill, developers of the long-abandoned Gorsey Bank estate in Cheadle Heath, remained positive - but sounded a note of caution.
A spokesman said: "Terrace Hill remains committed both to its Gorsey Bank development and the local area and believes that Stockport will benefit from regeneration activity over the coming years. For all developers, however, decisions on timing and viability do depend on prevailing market conditions. We continue to work up plans for our scheme and look forward to providing an update on progress at Gorsey Bank in due course."
Targetfollow, who are working on the £100m development of the Grand Central site on Wellington Road North, insist they are still on track to start the first phase by the end of the year - and say they will not be scaling back any of their proposals.
Marketing manager Adrian Goldney said: "We are on a sound financial footing really and Grand Central is very much still going ahead. We got planning permission about two months ago now and we are just putting all the pieces in place before we start work on the project.
"There’s a lot of work going on in the background and we are still very confident."
A spokeswoman for Sainsbury’s, who were selected as development partners for the Knightsbridge site earlier this year, said: "We continue to work on commercial and legal aspects of the scheme and we are pleased with progress.
"Our commitment to bringing a new Sainsbury’s to Stockport is as strong as ever."
Seddons, who have planning permission to develop Hopes Carr, were unavailable for comment.
Council leader Dave Goddard remains positive. Speaking last week about Lend Lease’s decision he said: "We are big enough to deal with it and we are determined enough to move forward positively."
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20/08/2008 at 14:00
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20/08/2008 at 17:22