HULL City Council has unveiled the first £12.7m phase of the largest transformation project in the East Riding city’s history. The improvements — expected to cost at least £25m when complete — are part of the run up to Hull’s reign of UK City of Culture in 2017.
Created by the authority’s physical regeneration team in partnership with the Newcastle-based landscape and urban design specialists, URS, the initial phase is being financed solely by the city council although it is hoping to attract additional key funding. The work will start this autumn.
“As a city, we need to raise our game in terms of delivering the ambitions of our published City Plan and preparing for our time as City of Culture,” said Steven Bayes, the council’s portfolio holder for visitor destination and City of Culture.
“City centre improvements are essential in Hull,” he added. “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.
The council’s cabinet is expected to formally approve the strategy later this month, paving the way for detailed design work to start on each element of the scheme which, collectively, it hopes will:I
Martin Mancey is portfolio holder for the council’s energy policy and feels a joined-up approach to city centre planning is essential if the city is to achieve its potential. “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,” he said.
“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.
Hull has an integral place as a key economic driver city, he stressed, particularly in the light of both Lord Adonis and George Osborne’s recent claims there was a growing need to improve connectivity between the cities of Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Hull in order to maximise northern investment opportunities.
Although many of the individual improvement projects have already been included in the council’s master plan for the city, the details come less than 24 hours after an announcement that Hull is getting £104m from the Government’s regional development fund to create thousands of jobs in the Humber region.
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