On Thursday 19 March, I was part of a packed audience which assembled at Antenna for what was billed as the Nottingham Regeneration Breakfast Seminar.
Organised by Nottingham City Council it was a very useful update on what is going on around the city area with presentations made by leading figures from both the public and private sector.
Quite rightly Councillors Collins and Chapman highlighted the large public sector projects known to us all which are either completed or nearly completed (the dualling of the A453, the refurbishment of Nottingham Railway Station and the extension to the NET lines 2 and 3).
In the private sector we heard that Nottingham University have a plan to expend £580m on teaching research and other infrastructure in the next 5 years.
Intu’s intent is now clear. They have started their refurbishment work to the Victoria Centre and are looking to seek formal planning consent for the re-modelling/refurbishment of the Broadmarsh.
The 100 or so surplus acres on the Boots site at Beeston are being prepared for occupiers/developers to come forward with their proposals for developments that meet the health, wellbeing and beauty markets that Boots are keen to foster. In Nick Ebbs’ absence Chris Brown of Igloo was entrusted to outline Blueprint’s plans going forward, particularly in respect of the redevelopment of Trent Basin.
In all it left everyone listening with a very positive feeling that the Nottingham is poised to build upon the public sector infrastructure investment, which has been so widely publicised and although nothing is 100% certain, there is a good feel about the place.
The whole event reminded me of previous ‘presentations’ organised by the City Council. The gap between last Thursday’s event and the previous one (probably 3 or 4 years ago) feels too long, even though projects of the size in question take years to plan and execute.