Regeneration: Rochdale begins to make headway

REGENERATION efforts in Rochdale had become mired in bureaucracy in recent years but finally appear to be showing signs of momentum.

Within the past week, De Vere Hotels has regained planning permission to build a 120-bed Village Hotel and leisure club at the 170-hectare Kingsway Business Park scheme next to the M62 and the council has just signed a £10.8m contract with Wilmott Dixon to deliver a new leisure centre – replacing an outdated building on the edge of the town centre.

Although Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council’s chiefs are still awaiting a decision on funding for a scheme to re-site the bus station at a proposed new interchange (right) site that will also house a stop for the forthcoming Metrolink extension, chief executive Roger Ellis said that most of the projects which required major elements of capital spending had already been funded and were unlikely to fall victim to proposed government cutbacks.

“Most of the capital funding we need to take these sites forward is secure,” Ellis told TheBusinessDek.com. “The concern at the moment is the revenue budget.”

Ellis said that a piece of research commissioned from GVA Grimley around five years ago concluded that the town would lose around 1,000 jobs a year as a result of the decline of its industrial base. Initially, it was envisaged that these would be replaced by new industries, but the recession and a failure to tempt inward investors to projects like Kingsway has meant this hasn’t really happened.

Moreover, the town has regularly been named as the worst performer on the region’s retail property scene due to its high level of voids. Much of its existing offer consists of small, unsuitable units which has meant that it has been unable to attract major, high street retailers.

The proposed redevelopment of the town centre has suffered from years of delays and legal stumbling blocks. However, a £150m scheme proposed by Genr8 Developments last year has gained development funding from Japanese investment bank Kajima and the foodstore-led project looks set to start on site in 2012.

Its scheme will be built on the site of Rochdale’s existing building and the “Black Box” – a municipal building constructed in the 1970s which is being pulled down once a new complex opposite the proposed transport interchange completes.

It will contain accommodation for 2,000 council staff, a new library and a customer service centre.

“This building has been up for 30 years and there are bits falling off the outside,” said Ellis. “We knew we were facing massive bills that would get worse as the building got older if we didn’t do something about it.”

He said the council investigated various options, including a potential refurbishment, but the development of new offices was “by a long way” the most economic option. The new building will house 2,000 employees and will allow the council to bring in staff from 33 outlying buildings in the town.

“Even after our capital contributions, we’ll save £28m,” he said.

The town’s other major recent success has been the opening of its new £26m sixth form college, which will eventually house 1,000 students. Ellis said that there had been some cynicism over whether Rochdale would be able to attract enough students to fill the building (left), but the 500 places for its first year intake were easily filled and recent events aimed at next year’s intake were heavily attended.

“It’s a high quality building,” he said. “The prospects for next year are that it will be oversubscribed.”

Even Kingsway – a site that was first identified as strategically important employment site 50 years ago but subsequently became mired in legal disputes and took years to put together – is now seeing “a lot of interest” from companies, he argues.

“There’s even some competition between potential occupiers for some of the plots,” he said.

Kingsway Business Park is a £15m joint venture between developer Wilson Bowden and the North West Regional Development Agency (NWDA), which is due to be abolished in 2012.

Under the current structure, the NWDA owns the site and once units are developed on it by Wilson Bowden it turns the plots back over to the Council, which has provided funding and support for the development alongside Rochdale Development Agency.

As yet, no fixed decision has been taken as to what will happen with the land assets held by England’s various development agencies, and some regeneration experts have predicted that the government may embark on a “smash and grab” to seize control of such assets . However, Ellis does not believe that this will happen with Kingsway, which has already received £33m worth of infrastructure investment.

“They (the agency) have some assets, but as partners they have some responsibilities to us, too.”

Last year, the council also drew up a masterplan for the town centre which included proposals for upgrading the public realm. When these will come to fruition clearly depends on the council’s ability to fund them, but he said that a key priority will be improvements to the area outside Rochdale’s impressive town hall to create one of the largest public squares in England which could be used to host events.

“Currently, the town hall sits in the middle of a surface-level car park. We think we can do better than that.”