Stevenage: a transforming town

The regeneration strategy for Stevenage is based on creating a thriving destination town centre with a mix of retail, leisure activities and town centre living to increase footfall and support businesses. The council has built partnerships with private investors for major commercial and residential developments with Mace and Reef Group, alongside delivering its own interventions to deliver change now. In addition to these partnerships, Stevenage was awarded £37.5 million of funding through the Towns Fund, creating culture, leisure and commercial opportunities and highlighting the scale of the town’s ambition and achievement.

Stevenage Town Centre was largely built in the years following 1946, when it was named the UK’s first New Town. Like many other New Towns, there are real assets that benefit local people:  over 45km of cycleways, outstanding parks and open space, family homes and local facilities and space for local businesses. But, as time has passed, there are significant challenges too.  Many of the buildings in the town centre have aged at the same time, leaving an environment in need of investment, and some buildings with the inability to respond to challenges such as climate change.

The role that town centres play in our everyday lives is changing. The pandemic has served as a strong reminder that town centres need to adapt to the challenges they face, including reducing their reliance on retail, and as such major changes to introduce new uses are needed. We need a mixed and thriving space which increases the demand for services in the area and supports our existing businesses, whilst attracting new ones.

Working with our communities is critical as we progress through this regeneration programme. The opinions of our residents are at the heart of what we do and help to co-design several of our projects. Our town needs to offer different things for different people and needs to be enjoyed by those for whom it is being delivered. A strong local partnership approach between the council, private sector partners and our communities continues to be fundamental to bring vibrancy to our town. We are communicating complex change against a challenging cost of living crisis, and ongoing community outreach is key as we guide development for everyone.

We have drawn upon a number of national studies, such as The Grimsey Review, to affirm our approach to the regeneration of the town centre. We are diversifying the uses of our town, introducing improved transport facilities, leisure, culture and retail spaces, alongside town centre living to encourage people to live, work and enjoy Stevenage. We need to find new ways to introduce sustained footfall within the town centre to encourage spend. We do have a significant number of retailers within our town centre, and well-known names such as Marks & Spencer are returning. However, there is a decline in ‘traditional’ retail, and we need to be doing everything we can to support our existing businesses, and to continue to attract new occupiers. By increasing the residential population of the town centre, we are encouraging spend – people will need places to shop and to eat and drink. In turn, this will support business and make Stevenage an attractive destination for potential occupiers. All of our work has been focused on this ethos.

Long-term regeneration can take years and even decades to deliver, but the council is committed to change now. We have delivered a series of interventions within the town centre to deliver for our residents and businesses. Already the Town Square - home of the iconic Clock Tower – has new paving, bespoke lighting and the restoration of heritage building frontages based upon original features.

Stevenage has some important architecture, and certain sections of our built environment are protected as conservation areas. As such, many of these buildings are repurposed as their uses change. One such example of this can be found in the heart of the town centre, in an area adjacent to the Town Square – one of our most important and well-known areas, with the additional challenges of being a Conservation Area.  The development of a dilapidated retail area in the heart of the town square has provided new retail, commercial and flexible office space, including the introduction of Co-Space, a flexible working facility in the town that opened in August 2021. Formerly situated above a row of shops, the space has been transformed into an environment where people can work in the heart of the town, adapting to the changing requirements of town centres and the need to diversify.

Elsewhere, Market Place, a previously underutilized shopping street, has a new garden play trail to improve accessibility and boost footfall. And a £50m upgrade to Queensway North is complete, delivered by Reef Group, introducing commercial and residential use including a gym and restaurants.

We are aware of the need to develop sustainably. Our town centre needs to be fit for purpose, but it also needs to address the very real challenge of climate change. Working with our partners, we are ensuring responsible development, utilising sustainable initiatives such as reusing materials between projects to reduce wastage and recycling where possible. A part of this is offering our residents a range of ways in which to travel sustainably. We have been moving forward with the creation of our sustainable travel hub, which links all of our major transport facilities with at grade crossings to facilitate easy access for everyone. The new Stevenage Bus Interchange opened at the end of June, which overall provides greatly improved facilities for current and future bus users. And across Lytton Way, construction continues on our new multi-storey car park with 622 spaces, including charging spaces for electric vehicles and secure cycle storage, due to open in Spring 2023.

Stevenage is a hub for life sciences. Reef Group is delivering a £65m European headquarters for Autolus HQ, bringing office and lab space into the centre of the town. A further £900m of investment has been announced for the creation of world-leading life sciences campus in Stevenage, and we will be working hard to capture the jobs and skills opportunities for local people, as well as to help create a thriving local economy.

Aside from the works that have already been delivered, we are on the ground continuing to build places for people. Works are well underway to repurpose the former bus station in the centre of the town, which is being transformed into a community space, with performance areas, places for events and a pop-up park to increase the amount of greenery in the town centre. The council is delivering a first stage of works ahead of the wider regeneration to activate the space, with a varied events programme to provide something for everyone and re-ignite our evening economy.

The works here are demonstrative of the main impacts of the regeneration to date, which is the ongoing transformation of the town. We are working in challenging economic circumstances and facing pressures due to inflation; however we have continued to develop and secure investment to move ahead with our vision.

The ongoing success of our programme directly contributed to the £37.5m we were awarded by the Government through the Towns Fund in March 2021. This funding was allocated to Stevenage following the submission of our Town Investment Plan, created by the Stevenage Development Board, a partnership of businesses (including Airbus, MBDA and GsK), educational institutions and other key stakeholders from across the town. It identified a number of important projects that will provide opportunities for local residents and supercharge our businesses, with a vision for Stevenage to be a STEM city, building on our world-leading life sciences, aerospace and engineering industries. The business cases related to the Towns Funds projects have all been approved and residents will soon start to see the delivery of these.

The projects include potential work on the Station Gateway area, a sport & leisure centre and improvements to both the Gunnels Wood Road roundabout area and the cycling infrastructure, amongst others.

Initiatives such as Stevenage Works are helping to provide local jobs and skills and help fund and provide volunteers for community projects. Our shared efforts with the Stevenage Development Board and others are helping to provide skills and job opportunities in growing sectors.

This is a long-term, phased programme and we are aiming for sustained success. The Towns Fund award provides us with the security to push forward with other projects and we are working closely with a range of partners to identify new ways to continue to advance the progress of the town, some of which is underway on site. We now have, and are always building, partnerships to continue to deliver progress to Stevenage.

The value and importance of strong, strategic partnerships across both the public and private sector, including with Hertfordshire County Council & Hertfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership, is fundamental. Strong and decisive leadership, with the ability to make challenging decisions is also key; the benefits of investing in regeneration are not felt in the first few years, when assembling land and procuring developers – meaning shorter-term, positive interventions are also needed as part of the overall direction of travel. Our direction has allowed us to adhere to our values as a co-operative council which is fundamental to the ongoing success of the programme. We have placed a significant focus on engaging with residents and launching large-scale public consultations in order to ensure that our plans are aligned with what our residents, businesses and other stakeholders really want. We worked closely with the local community on our proposals for the transformation of the former bus station, and will continue to do so on all projects across the town.

www.stevenage-even-better.com

Tom Pike – Assistant Director, Stevenage Borough Council