Walsall – waterfront led regeneration
The Walsall Regeneration Company (WRC) formed in March 2004 to lead regeneration in Walsall and the surrounding area. It has drawn up a framework for development that sets out to transform the town over the next 10 to 15 years. This is spearheaded by eight ‘transformational’ projects which are intended to play a different role in the town’s regeneration. Each has a different emphasis, embracing the business, skills, retail, housing sectors, and form part of an interlocking jigsaw.
Industrial buildings have been removed alongthe canal to be developed by Urban Splash
WRC hopes to attract £755 million in public and private sector investment to fund this ambitious programme. The eight projects are not only expected to deliver new jobs and homes, but also raise the aspirations of the town.
First to come onstream will be The Walsall Waterfront, a flagship development by Urban Splash of designer homes, offices and waterside cafes and restaurants. This new ‘quarter’, located right in the heart of the town and inspired by the nearby iconic art gallery, is intended to kickstart the whole regeneration process.
The second early project, the Darlaston Strategic Development Area, situated several miles out of the town next to the M6, aims to attract major new employers into the area. The education element will come through six other projects. This include a new business and learning campus, anchored by an expanded Walsall College, and the St Matthew’s Quarter of the town combining urban apartments with niche shopping, pulling in leading High Street stores.
Urban design has a key role to play in the regeneration process. New city squares are being planned, linked to a major remodelling of the town centre. These incorporate new bus and train station links and a new civic space centred on the Cenotaph.
Key facts
The Walsall regeneration area
Size and location
780 hectares
Timescale
2004 -
Partners
Walsall Regeneration Company (WRC), Advantage West Midlands, English Partnerships, and Walsall Council.
Budget
£755 million
The project
Problems addressed: The Borough of Walsall, along with Wolverhampton, Dudley and Sandwell, make up the Black Country. The Black Country Consortium has produced a sub-regional spatial strategy – the Black Country Strategy- that sets out a 30 year vision for the Black Country. It puts the focus on promoting its centres - Walsall, Brierley Hill, Sandwell and Wolverhampton - as economic drivers. The strategy is not a planning document, but is intended as a coherent vision that addresses the key issues involved in promoting the economic revival of the region.
Walsall had once been a prosperous Black Country manufacturing town. Its pre-eminence in leather goods and saddlery had brought it world renown as the ‘Leather Capital of Britain’. However, although the town centre was remodelled in the 1960s, Walsall’s economy has been in decline for some time. The problems are stark. There is high unemployment, while at the same time a chronic skills shortage sees 42 per cent of 16-60 year olds educated to NVQ level 1 or less. The town’s economic structure is still based still on 19th century manufacturing, an industry which has been in drastic decline over the last 20 years.
The Walsall Regeneration Company (WRC)
WRC is taking a unique approach to regeneration says Chief Executive Dr Peter Cromar. With just a small team of three funded by the private sector (local authority, RDA and English Partnerships) it is taking an entrepreneurial approach, aiming to draw in private sector investment. “We are an urban regeneration company. We don’t have powers or land,” he says. “In my view, it’s about influence, ensuring we put Walsall into other people’s programmes.
'We need to be clear about what we want to do. We aim to give the private sector as much certainty as possible. It’s all about giving confidence.
'It’s also about civic leadership, and rediscovering a sense of place.;
'How do you make a 30 year vision a reality? It’s a question of engaging the private sector and the government at different levels,' he says.
WRC aims to attract more than £755 million in public and private sector investment over the next 10 to 15 years, creating 5,550 jobs and reclaiming and/or remediating 174 acres of land.
Working closely with the Council and sponsors, WRC’s main objectives are to:
- Provide a unified vision and framework for regeneration that raises aspirations and makes a real and lasting difference to the economy and people of Walsall - its Prospectus for Growth
- Remove the obstacles and barriers to regeneration and development
- Raise the profile of Walsall regionally and nationally and generate confidence in the town as a place to invest, work and live
- Make a genuine difference by securing commitment from investors, both public and private, through a clear resonance with central Government initiatives for creating sustainable communities and urban renaissance
- Encourage high quality urban design within a framework for sustainable development
Developing the vision
Sustainability not just about green issues, but embraces economics, community and environment, which all need to be looked at together says Dr Cromar. The WRC does not work alone, but aims to build partnerships with others, including leading employers, the health authority, the Co-operative, local authority and others to bring about regeneration.
Plans to revive Walsall centre on attracting the young, urban professional into the town – a formula which has worked successfully in larger cities such as Manchester and Birmingham, but hitherto untried in smaller urban areas. This major shift in demographics – in which the ‘brain drain’ of young professionals is reversed - is linked to a series of developments, including the creation of a Waterside quarter of designer apartments, shops and offices.
New creative industries are to be drawn in, allied to developments in the education sector in which Walsall college aims to expand its design department. In addition a new department for Performance Arts is to be based at the University of Wolverhampton’s Gorway campus in the town. A fashion-led retail revival is hoped for in the town centre, in which leading High Street names will be tempted to move in. This in turn is linked to a series of urban design initiatives.
Every effort is being made to ensure new development occurs in the town centre, rather than in out-of-town shopping malls. New cultural squares andshopping quarters will be created, with hoped-for retailers such as Tzana and Mango, and leading supermarkets, also being attracted in. A car parking strategy will be introduced. One aim is to take advantage of Walsall’s good transport links – it is only 20 minutes by train from Birmingham, and can claim more motorway junctions in the borough than any other.
Urban design
The aim is to recapture the traditional street layout, which has been lost under recent road schemes, linked to key visual points and vistas, new civic squares and public spaces. Two buildings, one old, one new, dominate the town’s skyline today. The vision for the future is based around providing a visual link between the two, the New Art Gallery, which opened in February 2000 at a cost £21 million, and the 13th century St Matthew’s Church on the other side of the town.
A range of proposals for the town include:
- Using the Walsall canal as a key corridor to tie together the town centre, the Manor Hospital, residential neighbourhoods and to connect areas further afield, including Darlaston and Leamore
- Improving key locations in the town centre; New Gallery Square, Civic Square, Church Hill, St Paul’s Square, and including a new ‘civic park’ at Bradford Place
- Creating new open spaces in new communities and at the Darlaston logistics/ distribution centre adjacent to the M6.
- Establishing a ‘hierarchy’ of streets and spaces, such as restoring the historic St Matthew’s Church/ High Street vista, partly by relocating the town’s market and partly through the Old Square Alliance scheme
- Linking public open spaces with areas of ecological interest, such as between Bradford Place and the Arboretum
- Enhancement of important routes and entry points into Walsall - Wolverhampton Road, Green Lane, Bloxwich Road, Pleck Road and Wednesbury Road - including the interesting use of lighting to mark the town’s significant ‘gateways’.
The eight projects
Waterfront
Urban Splash has been chosen as the developer for this flagship project. The site, which runs along the canal from the Walsall Art Gallery (built with public money as a Millennium project), is regarded as a symbol of ‘the new resurgent Walsall’, combining ‘aspiration with inspiration’. As well as 650 new sustainable designer homes, offices, café-bars, restaurants, leisure and cultural facilities, the area will include canalside public open spaces and artworks, including new bridges and basins. The cost of the development is £180 million-plus, the size about 17 acres
New Gallery SquareWaterfront will also be influential in the successful transformation and evolution of the adjacent New Gallery Square, into a pivotal ‘civic space’ linking the town centre and the new quarter. It will contain several key civic buildings including a new library.
How the new square will look
Darlaston
High quality logistics operations and distribution centres on a huge site straddling the M6.
Office Quarter
A new mixed use central business quarter is proposed for the Littleton Street/Blue Lane corridor with the creation of a series of office developments.Creating a high quality environment including land next to the redeveloped Walsall College campus, it is intended to create critical mass in the sector and stimulate further interest in Walsall as an attractive office location within the West Midlands
Business and learning campus
A major transformational regeneration project incorporating the creation of a Business and Learning Campus anchored by the new college and including major retail investment by Tesco.
Bradford Place and Station Street
A major re-modelliing incorporating upgraded bus facilities, improved links to the railway station, all within a new ‘civic space’ centred on the Cenotaph.
St Matthew’s Quarter
A new ASDA ‘superstore’ is set to open on the former Sainsbury’s site, with ‘city living’ apartment schemes with ground floor niche shopping proposed for both sides of George Street.
Canalside Communities
Significant new, sustainable communities will merge with existing ones to form an almost unbroken chain of residential clusters between the town centre from Wolverhampton Road through Reedswood and beyond to Leamore.
Additional resources
The waterfront development has been included as a good practice case study on the RegenWM website.
