£25m city centre transformation plans revealed
HULL City Council has unveiled the first £12.7m phase of the largest city centre transformation project in the city’s history.
It is hoped that the scheme will eventually lead to a total investment of £25m.
The new-look city centre public realm improvement strategy and investment plan will:
• Increase city centre retail turnover by almost £70m.
• Create an extra £16.8m of Gross Value Added (GVA) within the local retail sector.
• Support more than 500 new jobs in the retail and visitor sectors over the next 10 years.
• Increase occupancy in city centre commercial properties.
• Improve investor confidence in Hull.
• Increase local spend within the city through increased footfall and improved key routes for pedestrians by connecting wider parts of the city with the centre.
• Encourage more businesses into Hull city centre.
• Improve connections between different areas of the city centre.
The designs have been created by Hull City Council’s physical regeneration team in consultation with landscape architecture and urban design specialists, URS, and a number of key agencies.
The key routes that will benefit from the proposals are:
• Paragon Station and Paragon Square: A natural entrance to the city centre will be created, with public art and weeping willows to remember those who died in the Second World War.
• Jameson Street: Decluttered and heritage architecture highlighted.
• King Edward Street: Pedestrianised to improve connectivity with other key areas.
• Queen Victoria Square: Street-level fountains. Multi-LED “mood” lighting projected on to Hull City Hall and the Maritime Museum.
• Beverley Gate: The history of Beverley Gate will be showcased through architectural glass above the ground, stone depictions of the historical gate and a night-time illuminated “apparition” of Beverley Gate’s exact historical location.
• Queens Gardens: The original 1920s design by Frederick Gibbards will be reinstated. A central performance stage will be created in tribute to one of Hull’s most famous sons, Mick Ronson, of David Bowie’s Spiders From Mars.
• Whitefriargate: High-quality, rollback timber seating and quality designs will draw people into Trinity Square.
• Trinity Square: Opened up to create a feeling of more space and to allow views down Princes Street. The Andrew Marvell statue will stand on a smaller plinth and could be recast in bronze, or moved to an interior location to ensure its longevity. A sculptural bridge across the A63 at Castle Street will improve pedestrian connections between this area and the Fruit Market.
• Fruit Market: A modern interpretation will retain and reflect the original character of the area. Cobbles that lay under the Tarmac will be revealed to create a pedestrian area in Humber Street, where atmospheric web lighting will creating the illusion of a magical, starlit sky.
Councillor Steven Bayes, portfolio holder for Visitor Destination and City of Culture, said: “City centre improvements are essential in Hull. As a city, we need to raise our game in terms of delivering the ambitions of the City Plan and preparing for our time as City of Culture, starting in 2017.
“However, getting it right is key. Providing public spaces that are enjoyable, convenient, accessible and safe for the people that use them is vital. People’s needs – our residents, our businesses and the hundreds of thousands of visitors we expect to welcome to Hull city centre during 2017 and beyond – must be at the heart of all our improvements to public spaces.
“Today’s public realm strategy proposals provide a clear route to help us unlock the potential of this great city and to cement Hull’s position as City of Culture 2017 and a world-class visitor destination.”
Councillor Martin Mancey, portfolio holder for Energy City, added: “The city needs to exploit this interest to attract further prestigious companies to view Hull as a place where they want to set up business, as well as enhancing the appeal of the city to tourists. It is essential therefore that Hull presents itself as an attractive place both to invest and visit.
“The city centre will inevitably feature in much media coverage and marketing activities and these proposed improvements to the public realm will be a highly visible statement of Hull’s ambitions.
“Hull also has an integral place as a key economic driver city, with recent plans announced by both Lord Adonis and George Osborne concerning the essential need to improve connectivity between the cities of Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Hull in order to maximise northern investment opportunities through improved connections with the south-east. We have to prepare for this and today’s announcement forms one part of our wider plans for how we intend to deliver it.”
Following approval of the strategy, detailed designs will be produced for each element of the improvement scheme.
For the initial phase, £12.7m of Hull City Council funding is already allocated to the city centre, Greening The City and the Fruit Market, subject to approval. It will be funded from Hull City Council’s City Plan budget, plus other funding bids for key elements of work.
It is hoped that work will begin in autumn.
