Projects

The North Worcestershire Economic Development and Regeneration team, a multi-authority body, commissioned PRD and project partners AR Urbanism to review options for two key high street sites on behalf of Bromsgrove District Council. The sites are at either end of the town centre, which Bromsgrove DC aims to revitalise with new workplaces, retail, and leisure.

To complement the council’s own ambitions, PRD and ARU consulted various stakeholders throughout the town centre. With this feedback, the project team developed options for the sites and PRD assessed the deliverability and viability for each, resulting in scheme options that would be attractive to the developer market, fundable, and play a wider role in regenerating the town centre.

The proposals included a mix of housing and ground floor community uses for one site and a mix of workspace and meanwhile use leisure on the other, which will enhance the existing town centre by bringing in new residents and modern, bespoke spaces for different uses.

Folkestone and Hythe District Council commissioned a multidisciplinary team, which included PRD, to develop a Place Plan for Folkestone town centre—a critical exercise to define the future role of the town centre following a year of Covid-19 related lockdowns and ongoing challenges facing the high street.

The Place Plan addresses themes such as public realm, employment, skills and training, investment, and transport. PRD developed the socioeconomic evidence base for the Place Plan as well as recommendations to enable business growth, economic development and long-term community participation.

Guided by the views of local people, the project team developed a ‘mission-driven’ approach with six missions to structure the actions of the Place Plan and galvanise external investors around shared goals. PRD helped develop these missions and identified specific outputs and outcomes against each one to enable the council to measure success and progress.

The Place Plan provides the council with a robust evidence base upon which to bid for central government regeneration funding and the ‘mission-driven’ approach has allowed external partners to see both what the council is doing and where their own investments can make contributions to the aims of the Place Plan.

LB Hackney commissioned PRD to establish an in-depth evidence base on Hoxton’s communities and economy with a view to informing future strategies, partnership working, delivery, and investment. The evidence drew on PRD’s detailed review of socioeconomic data and an extensive programme of community engagement to understand the lived experiences of residents, carried out with project partners Fluid.

Through this work, we helped LB Hackney understand perceptions on how the area is changing, local support networks and their capacities, the needs of residents and which areas need better support mechanisms, and how the council can work with partners to improve opportunities for residents.

Following this, PRD undertook a similar review focused on businesses in Shoreditch to review the effects of Covid-19. The two studies are directly supporting a new Action Plan for local investment.

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) secured £1m of the Mayor’s Good Growth Fund to promote employment and economic growth in and around the Kensal Canalside Opportunity Area (KCOA). This has been match funded by £1m from RBKC’s Capital Fund.

Alongside regular collaborators We Made That and Redo, PRD developed a spatial framework to expand Kensal’s creative economy. Our consortium undertook a mapping exercise which revealed the importance of affordable creative workspace and civic and charitable sector clusters not just for the local area but to the wider borough. We developed interventions, including a new workspace for the area, that will ensure development in KCOA reflects and boosts the existing creative economy and brings opportunities for jobs and enterprise for North Kensington.

We also supported RBKC to draft a Supplementary Planning Document to further support the area and we are currently exploring a wider asset development strategy for the borough, in which RBKC takes a direct role to safeguard affordable spaces for the long term and embed inclusive economic growth.

The GLA’s high streets data service brings together dynamic datasets to build a detailed picture of activity across the city’s 600+ high streets. It is intended to help people understand how activity on high streets is changing, especially in light of Covid-19 and ongoing recovery. PRD initially advised the GLA on relevant data to consider for the service and developed an outline structure for a London-wide, multi-stakeholder Data Partnership which will help guide the new data service.

The GLA commissioned PRD for ongoing work with the data service and partnership, which involves bespoke data analysis and reporting, refining the partnership structure, training support, and promoting the data service.

Supported by acclaimed architects Astudio, PRD was commissioned to develop an Action Plan to secure the long-term viability of Sutton town centre. LB Sutton commissioned this innovative project to re-energise the existing strategy for the town centre, which had lost momentum as the economic downturn made the major spatial strategy for the area undeliverable.

We did a thorough analysis of the town centre’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and a review of policy, baseline data and best practices. Together with LB Sutton and local stakeholders, we developed a portfolio of short, medium and long-term interventions of varying levels of complexity, cost and risk.

The revised strategy promotes an innovative, community-driven focus, with public realm, meanwhile uses and public art being conduits to reposition the town centre at the heat of civic life. It also proposes a proactive approach that empowers the council to take control of regeneration and development in the town centre.

LB Sutton has since embarked on a range of initiatives which build on the proposals in the action plan; make the most of the town centre’s long pedestrian thoroughfare; and present a vibrant mix of uses at a human scale. These initiatives include Sutton Works (delivering innovative workspace in a former BHS department store with GLA Good Growth Funding), the Market House Hub, the Future High Streets Fund project and the Town Centre Masterplan.

Worcester Shrub Hill Station is a Grade-II listed building nearing dereliction through lack of investment. The station surroundings are similarly disinvested and poorly signposted to the nearby city centre. Early business cases and cost-benefit ratios for redeveloping the station did not support investment.

PRD is working on a long-term project with Worcestershire County Council to develop a feasible strategy for station investment and development. Following extensive viability testing, socioeconomic profiling, visioning workshops, and reviewing funding and land value capture models, we advised WCC that unlocking wider regeneration around the station and land value capture would make investment viable.

This has enabled WCC to buy 4.5 hectares of land around the station with a view to catalysing 1000 homes, 7000 jobs, and 102,000 m² of new commercial space for Shrub Hill over the next 30 years, with flexibility built in so development can respond to market changes. WCC themselves will act as an anchor tenant, moving from an out-of-town office park back to the heart of the city and repurposing an underused asset.

We are now supporting WCC and Worcester City Council to form a development plan for the 4.5 ha plus surrounding sites under other ownership. This involves identifying reusable assets, deliverable parcels throughout the site, phasing options, and potential partners.

PRD supported London and Continental Railways and Worthing Borough Council in designing, structuring and launching an innovative public-public partnership focused on development and regeneration.

The partnership will initially focus on promoting and realising development on several publicly owned but previously stalled town centre sites. Development of the sites will help realise the council’s vision for the town centre.

We subsequently provided further development management and commercial support to mobilise the partnership.