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| Big plans for Grimsby Top Town - but it will never again look like this |
GIVE us the £25-million, and we'll deliver!
That's the message to Whitehall (and Boris) as it presses on with its audacious makeover plans for part of Grimsby's Top Town.
Since the proposal was first revealed in the Grimsby News, the public response has been less than enthusiastic - not so much because it has been disliked but because many regard it as pie-in-the sky.
But NELC's cabinet is determined.
By the end-of-July deadline, it will have submitted its bid for a payout from the coffers of Whitehall's £675-million Future High Streets Fund.
The good news is that already the scheme has been shortlisted.
Below are more details of the project, as described in a report to be discussed on Tuesday.
"The changes affecting the country’s high streets are evident and well documented.
"For Grimsby town centre the challenge is twofold - managing the
repositioning of retail use to other viable uses and reinvigorating the traditional high street area of Victoria Street West and its connecting areas.
"Freshney Place acts as the principal attraction to the town centre, with, in normal times, footfall of about 210,000 people per week.
"The challenge for the town is to increase 'dwelling time' and ensure
footfall is maintained and, ideally, increased.
"The lack of leisure uses for all ages, including family entertainment, is an obvious gap which holds back both the day and evening economy.
"It also makes aspirational residential development challenging.
"In recent years, many shopping centre owners have been repositioning their assets to provide a mixture of uses
with between 15-25 percent of the existing space being adapted for leisure.
"However, due to high costs to secure these uses, notably tenant incentives and build costs, it is commercially unviable and cannot be delivered in isolation.
"Therefore, town centre transformation cannot be unlocked without central government intervention.
Future High Street Funding aims to provide infrastructure
investment to help address these challenges, drive growth and ensure future sustainability."
The report continues:
"After a full site options analysis exploring seven different town centre sites, the western side of Victoria Street was chosen as the prime area for this development.
"Among factors considered were alternative uses for vacant retail
units, overall space and building condition, best value for money, economic and transformational impact.
"The proposed scheme sits at the heart of the town centre at the west end of Freshney Place, incorporating the former BHS building, Flottergate Mall, Top Town Market and Old Market Square.
"The aim is to create a leisure hub - an appropriate number of
food and beverage units together with a new market hall and small public square.
"Specifically, it will look to establish the following:
* A new 5-6 screen multiplex cinema on the site of the current Top
Town Market Hall
* Supporting leisure space opportunity on the site of Old Market
Place retail parade
* A new market and food hall - on the site of the former BHS
building
* New food and beverage units - on the current Flottergate site
* New public square and community space – on the current
Flottergate site "
According to the report's authors, the scheme has the full backing and support of Freshney Place owners who have, 'in principle', agreed to deliver the scheme as a joint-venture with the council.
The authors acknowledge that past town centre leisure plans have stalled due to economic viability and market forces.
But they say the Government has created the new fund with the specific objective of reinvigorating high streets and town centres,
recognising that public funds are needed to unlock developments of this kind.
They conclude: " The delivery of new leisure assets will bring vibrancy to Grimsby town centre, thereby reversing a declining trend in town centre retail performance."
The Grimsby News says: The scheme for a 'leisure hub' in one part of Top Town was a flop, so why should it be successful if relocated to another part? These sorts of ventures tend to work in towns and cities which have character - that is to say, they boast fine historical buildings or they sit by a beach, river or quaint fishing harbour. Grimsby town centre lost all its personality with the redevelopment of the 1960s and later. What is so dispiriting about this latest ‘initiative’ is that it lacks even the hint of a single fresh idea. The report reads as if it were written (it probably was) in the mid-1990s. In effect, it says: Plunk down a new cinema and hope for the best! Nor does there seem to have been any effort to benchmark with comparable towns to see how such projects have fared elsewhere. When the report comes up for scrutiny at a meeting next Tuesday, councillors need to challenge its authors with the maximum rigour. Here's hoping the bid is successful, but, if so, people - especially aspirational young people - want ideas that will excite them, not the same old boring same-old, same-old.
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