1. Regenerating Stevenage
Hertfordshire Housing Conference
24th April 2017
Tom Pike
Strategic Director
Good afternoon everybody.
Thank you Tina for the invite to talk about Stevenage.

2. About Stevenage First New Town
Growing by 20% over next 10 years and strong demand for housing
Key business centre, great connectivity
Some challenges too:
Age of infrastructure
Skills and opportunities
Our vision: A great place to live, work and enjoy
Some of you will not know Stevenage or its features.
Stevenage celebrated it 70th anniversary as a New Town this year.
As one of the first New Towns the Government sold off lots of assets to private funders to re-invest in other infrastructure projects.
It has continued to grow over recent years and is extremely successful economically.

3. 1. A deliverable Plan Six regeneration areas – 15 years £1bn GDV
New retail, public realm, leisure, transport, culture
3,600 new homes
£31m funding via LEP and partner bids to government
The aerial view of the Town shows clearly the physical opportunity; There are c30 hectares of car parking.
Lack of East West connectivity
No visibility/sense of arrival/ sense of place.
Over 50% of assets in public sector ownership!
Stevenage Borough Council has had regeneration as a priority for many years. In the “noughties” it had a development partner (Stanhope/ING) to deliver a major retail-led scheme that fell away as recession hit.
The Council learned its lessons from this painful experience and became very proactive. It engaged David Lock Associates in 2015 to develop a regeneration framework to deliver a 21st century Town Centre. The product of this work is a regeneration framework for the whole Town Centre
Key features are:
Strong East West Linkages
Focused Spaces and Streets
Go Higher
New Station Gateway
I’ll now give you a whistle stop tour of what the plan is looking to deliver!
Next Slide (Fancy interactive ones)!

4. 2. The right skills Political leadership
First rate and supportive partners – LEP, HCC
Gaining profile and support
Building a skilled team
First rate commercial and technical advice
Leadership is key. It is a multiplicity of Leadership. Need strong officer and Political leadership within the Council. The first picture here is our Corporate Priorities. Regeneration and Housing Delivery are 1 and 2. Endorsrsed Politically and well supported by the Leader. One needs to be resilient and “keep the faith.” Lead by example and continuous messaging
However, what we learned is that we need strong partners and collective leadership, promoting Stevenage whenever possible and working together across organisations to gain wider business and Government support. HCC and the LEP have been great partners and we have collectively worked on Government.
Now we need that “Collective Leadership” to secure investment in our Station.
We allocated resources early to buy land and do the groundwork. This is essential. Another key factor is allocate Senior Management Time to the process. Give yourself time to think and understand. This business was all new to me and, whilst no expert, I needed to understand the language, nuances and validity of what we were being told.
People are key to this business. We have managed after some early challenges to secure a strong (but very small) internal team to lead the programme. I have had to pay to secure interim people but that was essential to get the right type of people in my organisation with knowledge and charisma.
Use key professionals to support. We have built relationships with David Lock Associates for Masterplanning and Design and Cushman & Wakefield on commerciality. This has helped smooth the way with Members BUT IMPORTANTLY helped us with the development world. I have taken the opportunity to learn from them. Listen to what they say but also hear the music. Be agile and react to what you hear. We have changed in the light of housing market in Stevenage and now have a residential led scheme in the Town Centre. It delivers much needed housing BUT also footfall and money to change the public realm and retail. I am confident that SG1 will be the catalyst for large scale private investment.
I am now confident that we will deliver the transformation my Town needs.

5. 3. Making the most of the market
Promote place and vision
Location, location, location
Rising house values
Showing competence and confidence - prepare
Permitted development at £350 psf
New build at the approaching £400 psf
£350psf sales value for residential (exceeding this for permitted development and likely to be nearer £400)
£20psf for retail rents. Council has been proactive and bought QD. Starbucks open at Easter and we are exceeding this rent.
Viability
Another key aspect to moving forward positively is using sound professional and developing relationships with them. Working with Cushman & Wakefield have helped us to understand the art of the possible and EQUALLY IMPORTANT helped me understand the development world a little better.
I now know that viability means a scheme can be delivered, give 20% developer profit, pay its finance costs and deliver a positive land value. This is key as we own lots of the land.

6. 4. Crucially – belief and momentum
Regeneration is already happening in the town

7. Time to deliver – our first scheme
6 hectares
£300m – £350m development
800 new homes
Modern public realm
21st century Library and Public Hub
6,000 sq. metres new retail offer

8. Southgate Park
New residential apartments, urban primary school, library, retail, food and drink