£90m earmarked to support Coventry regeneration schemes
The West Midlands Combined Authority is set to authorise the release of more than £90m of funding to support the regeneration of Coventry.
Separately, the WMCA board is today expected to authorise £39.4m of Devolution Deal funding be diverted to the Coventry Rail Station Masterplan project, and from the same source, £51m for the first phase of the Coventry Friargate Business District scheme.
Both projects are promoted and endorsed by WMCA constituent member, Coventry City Council.
The Coventry Station Masterplan is an £82m programme of works intended to increase capacity at Coventry Rail Station. Of the total, £42.6m is already secure, with funding awarded from a number of sources including Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership (CWLEP), the Department for Transport (DfT) and the city council itself.
The WMCA contribution will ensure that the project is fully-funded.
The ‘Friargate Masterplan’ is a redevelopment scheme based around 26 acres of land next to Coventry Railway Station.
The masterplan was conceived by Friargate, which assembled the majority of the land required to regenerate the area around Coventry railway station.
The mixed-use scheme will provide a new high quality business district for the city. There will also be provision for ancillary retail, hotel and leisure uses along with residential buildings.
Phase One of the programme comprises five office blocks and a hotel. The first office block in the scheme, One Friargate, is already complete and is now occupied by Coventry City Council.
The latest funding would facilitate the further development of Phase One to include four additional four office buildings and a hotel, the latter being a much-needed resource for the city ahead of the 2021 UK City of Culture event.
It is anticipated the costs to build the remainder of Phase One will likely total £220m.
A report to today’s board meeting states: “The rationale for intervention is to overcome market failure to attract occupiers to a scheme before a building is constructed (while) the private sector will not currently finance construction of a building until occupiers are secured.
“Initial investment from the combined authority would be supported by the (city) council also investing in a joint venture with the developer.”
Once the second Friargate building is complete and annual rental income is secured, the city council will leverage the facility to borrow in order to fund further buildings.
Meanwhile, the station masterplan (see image below) aims to improve connectivity to the UK Central site and the HS2 high speed rail network.
Much like Friargate, it will boost jobs and growth in the city centre and in doing so, make a wider contribution to the success of the West Midlands economy.
Stakeholders in the economy of Coventry have said the current railway station, while Grade-II listed, has seen little change since it opened in 1962 and is now unsuited to modern passenger requirements.
The station has experienced unprecedented passenger growth over the last 10 years and is now beyond its design capacity, which the combined authority said was suppressing demand for travel and limiting current and future economic growth.
The plan involves a comprehensive redevelopment of the station to provide new infrastructure including a second station building, 644-space multi-storey car park – an addition of 350 spaces from the current provision, a new footbridge connecting all platforms, a new bay platform to enable more frequent services between Coventry and Nuneaton, a six-bay bus interchange with provision for rail replacement services and significant highway improvements to deal with traffic operation around the station and bus interchange.
A pedestrian underpass has already been completed which will provide traffic free access for pedestrians between the bus interchange and station building.
The additional capacity to the rail network will enable extra services to be introduced between Coventry and Nuneaton in the short term, with the potential to introduce more direct cross city services to the north east including Leicester and Nottingham in the longer term.
A report to today’s meeting states: “The current station facility requires significant investment to support the potential economic growth of the region and it’s vital that the capacity is increased in order to capitalise fully on the opportunities HS2 will bring not only to Coventry but also the wider sub-region.”
An overview of the Coventry Station Masterplan
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