Event Summary
North East Emerging Development Hotspots: Summary and photos
With a Combined Authority and a Metro Mayor, plus multi-million pound regeneration projects already underway, it’s an exciting time to be in the area. North East Emerging Development Hotspots mapped out the region’s investment hotspots and put its audience ahead of the curve.
The event was sponsored by Caddick, DAC Beachcroft and Muse.
“From the Toon to the moon”
Talking about the ‘real North’ in a new era of collaboration was a key theme for Michelle Percy, director of investment and growth at Newcastle City Council. She said: “What are we selling to developers, nationally and internationally? We were doing this before but we were doing this in an echo chamber.”
She described Newcastle as “a city on the rise” with a £6.7bn pipeline over the next 10 to 15 years, but with notes of caution: “It’s a long game. The public sector can’t do this on its own. Most sites are in private sector ownership and that means partnership.”
In an in-depth tour around the city, she detailed Forth Yards, “the last undeveloped water frontage in the city,” Founders Place in the Stephenson Quarter where a wealth of historic listed buildings are being brought back in to use, and City Gateway East, which is at a “serendipitous moment” thanks to initiatives by Northumberland University, with work starting on the £30m North East Space Skills & Technology Centre, and the defence industry, including Lockheed Martin.
In terms of that investment, she said it’s not all just housing led. The city is lacking grade A office space, though there’s 1m sq ft planned, and there’s a big push to create better job opportunities.
Michelle Percy had all the updates on developments coming forward in Newcastle. Credit: PNE
Shouting about Sunderland
Cllr Kevin Johnston, cabinet member for housing, regeneration and business at Sunderland City Council, is in the midst of “the most ambitious city centre regeneration project in the UK,” where 80 acres of development land at Riverside Sunderland will feature 1,000 new homes, 10,000 new jobs and 13 hectares of open space.
In the heart of this are West Park, where 265 mixed tenure homes will be created, and the former Vaux brewery site, which will have 135 new homes and “push the boundaries of low carbon design”. Elsewhere, work starts this summer on 135 homes at Farringdon Row, and a planning application will be submitted “imminently” for 600 residential properties at Sheepfolds, adjacent to the Stadium of Light.
He also detailed a new central business district with modular office space, The Yard with incubator-style business premises in a former police station, and The Beam, which is nearly 90% occupied, as well as City Hall where they are just marketing the remaining office space. Meanwhile at Maker & Faber, Grade A office space benefiting from £100 million of Legal & General investment, “the headline lettings are to be announced in the next few weeks”.
He also enthused about the newly-named Keel Crossing bridge – “our own Wembley Way” – and the Crown Works Studios, already dubbed Pally-wood thanks to its Pallion Ward location.
Johnston was buoyed by the timely announcement of the Washington-Sunderland metro line. Credit: PNE
Mixing it up
The name Muse comes from “mixed use” said Raife Gale, senior development manager for the company in Yorkshire and North East, and he’s a big advocate for that in the region: “Neighbourhoods need a variety of uses to sustain them.” He said Muse always worked in partnership and described several successful joint ventures.
He discussed the Newcastle Quayside and South Shields, where he said they were “changing perceptions of a seaside town” with the creation of the National Centre for the Written Word and a metro interchange to improve town centre connectivity, and the transformation of a former industrial heartland at Northshore in Stockton-on-Tees. He particularly enthused about the Durham Innovation Centre at Aykley Heads – a JV with Durham County Council. It will become a new regional innovation district focusing on research, data science, fintech, green technology, and healthcare.
“Aykley Heads is going to be the catalyst, the first phase of a 37-acre site sitting in a wider 155-acre innovation ecosystem,” he added. “Central to the vision is Durham University. Knowledge retention is key. Another really important stakeholder is the combined authority.
“Phase one, closest to the station, will be delivered under the existing planning consent and starts in 2027. The demolition of County Hall sits on the site of phase two.”
Raife Gale noted that designing an innovation-led development had presented different challenges to a housing-led project. Credit: PNE
Combined strengths
Rob Hamilton, head of strategy and innovation for the North East Combined Authority, says the organisation has been consulting on its 10-year interim Local Growth Plan and he’d welcome any last minute comments. He added: “We are going in to that with cabinet colleagues and knocking at the door of Whitehall.”
In addition, it launched its Investment Prospectus at UKREiiF, spelling out opportunities including Blyth Energy Central offshore wind and next generation data centres, the River Tyne Economic Corridor, and IMASS, the International Advanced Manufacturing Strategic Site near the Port of Sunderland, focusing on electric vehicles and battery ‘gigafactories’. He said the ambition is to “double the scale of the area’s economy in the next 10 years”.
“The key message is we know our priorities,” he said, “and our job is to work alongside to make those sites fly.”
In talking to the Government about the region’s needs, he said: “There is going to be an emphasis on brown field and affordable housing. It’s going to be challenging – house building at a pace never seen, and we will be working with partners to see what the infrastructure needs.”
Hamilton underlined the need for strong collaboration across the region. Credit: PNE
Devolution’s impact
Asked by Sally Gibson, editor of Place North East, for views on how devolution is impacting development, Stuart Howie, head of regeneration at Avison Young, said: ” I’m a huge fan. It’s about having the tools to do the job and the control over resources. I would like to see a move towards real fiscal devolution so authorities don’t have to go to Government and they get a share in their economy’s wealth, a dividend they can plough back in with confidence.”
Tania Love, associate partner at FaulknerBrowns Architects, was also positive. She said: “It is really good to see local authorities seeming to work together and a lot more tightly. I hope we can all see the river as a positive thing, rather than a barrier, to work on both sides.”
However, Insiyah Khushnood, senior development manager for igloo Regeneration, said some issues haven’t gone away: “Liability and build costs are still a challenge. There are different funding requirements for different schemes. Getting investors to look at commercial space is much harder – housing is easier because there is a market and support from Government.”
And she said the drive should always be for quality: “That’s where we should be doing better and pushing that agenda. Then it’s true regeneration.”
L-R: Sally Gibson, Simon Dew, Tania Love, Jonathan Seebacher, Inisyah Khushnood, Stuart Howie. Credit: PNE
Jonathan Seebacher, partner at Ryder Architecture, said the region has some unique strengths: “We are a bit of a sleeping giant but we want to sell our wares on the stage, so to speak. The perception sometimes is it still isn’t ‘fair’, perhaps, but the other advantage is there’s a genuine camaraderie to see everyone do well. There’s a healthy competition and there is city leadership in Newcastle and in Sunderland. The main players make themselves available which doesn’t always happen in other parts of the country.”
Simon Dew, development director at Muse, brought those who live in the North east into the mix: “The workforce dynamic, the strong university sector, they’re strong ingredients. When we talk to employers coming in, their first priority is not the building we are delivering, it’s where the workforce is going to come from. The next question is ‘does the city have vibrancy’ and thirdly, ‘where are my staff going to live’? That’s the bit that’s missing but schemes like Forth Yards provide that missing piece of the jigsaw to turbocharge the residential market.”
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