Comment
Southampton City Council: Issues and Options Consultation
Southampton City Council is embarking on a review of the City Vision Local Plan [1] with public consultation on Issues and Options starting today and running for 10 weeks.
This early stage in the Local Plan process will be important in establishing the key priorities for the local plan, and the city, over the coming decade. Director, Mervyn McFarland and Assistant Planner, Sarah Hockin share their thoughts on the issues, opportunities for the city and future development priorities.
Context
Recent years have seen the completion of a number of the city centre “VIP” projects which were identified by the current local plan and City Centre Action Plan.
Watermark Westquay opened in 2017 adding a new dimension to the leisure and dining offer in the city centre. This was complemented in 2018 by the new Nuffield Theatre and Hansard Gallery in the Cultural Quarter. Alongside this, Solent University’s transformation of its East Park Terrace campus has progressed with The Spark building opening in 2017 and the new Sports Building in 2019.
Development of key residential development sites has progressed at Itchen Riverside and Meridian Water, and the Bow Quarter, the city’s first large-scale PRS Development, has been completed and is now fully occupied.
Substantial public realm improvements have been completed to the north of Central Station and permission has been granted for the mixed-use redevelopment of Nelson Gate and Frobisher House.
The ‘scheme that got away’ was the ambitious £450m Royal Pier Waterfront development which would have transformed the landscape of Southampton's waterfront creating a new residential, retail and leisure quarter. After years of speculation about the buildability and deliverability of the scheme, the council finally terminated its development agreement with RWP in August last year.
Looking forward in key locations
Central area
The area from the Central Station to Town Quay, which includes the Royal Pier site, is nonetheless likely to feature prominently in the council’s priorities for the new local plan. This 84 hectare area of the city centre includes the Central Station, Nelson Gate, West Quay Retail Park, Royal Pier and Leisure World sites as well as the industrial estates south of West Quay Road. The council has committed to the development of a masterplan for this area, which will be known as the Mayflower Quarter. It intends that the masterplan will provide a framework for sites in which there is known developer interest, and provide the opportunity for the creation of new mixed-use neighbourhoods which will include office, hotel, retail and significant residential components.
It is encouraging to see the council look to unlock the potential of this wider area at a more strategic scale than has previously been the case. There is potential to deliver a transformational change in this area, making the most of its strategic location in relation to key transport hubs. Success will ultimately be dependent on the ability to bring together the many land-owning and occupational interests, and develop a framework which balances ambition with deliverability.
City centre periphery
If successful, the Mayflower Quarter project will undoubtedly shift the centre of gravity of the city centre and a strategy for the reinvention of peripheral areas will be needed. We have already seen some scaling-back of retail floorspace at East Street and the Bargate (the latter by our client Tellon Capital) to make way for high-density urban living schemes.
Developing a clear strategy for the consolidation of the city’s retail core, the redevelopment and repurposing of secondary retail space and the creation of new urban living developments in a variety of tenures should be a priority. This should include a strategy for the creation of new public and green spaces linked to redevelopment opportunities.
Waterside
Making the most of the city’s unique waterside environment has long been a policy objective with developments at Ocean Village, Chapel Riverside and Meridian Waterside demonstrating the attractiveness of the waterside environment to developers, investors, residents and visitors.
Looking forward we see opportunities to regenerate further waterfront areas on the Itchen, north of the Itchen Bridge, on both sides of the river; retaining waterside access for key industries whilst developing a strategy which allows secondary industrial space to be relocated to free-up waterside sites for higher-density, mixed-use redevelopment.
Beyond the centre
It will be important that the new local plan is a plan for the whole city and not just the central areas. The city’s district and suburban centres offer their own potential for new place-making initiatives and urban living, including the provision of much needed affordable housing. The smaller centres and suburbs need to be able to share in the benefits of the improved retail, leisure and employment opportunities in the city centre. Developing more sustainable travel networks, improving travel options to better connect the suburbs with the city centre, and improving connectivity across the urban area should be key themes.
A strategy for employment, business and investment
In 2018, Southampton climbed into the top three cities in the UK for the first time in the Good Growth for Cities index. It benefits from the presence of two universities and the National Oceanography Centre. The Port of Southampton is the UK’s number one export port, handling £40 billion of exports for UK manufacturers every year and 1.5 million cruise ship passengers.
Whilst the city has a robust economic base, the supply and distribution of employment and logistics space remains mismatched with market requirements and there is a legacy of poorer quality employment space. Where new space has become available in recent years it has been quickly taken up.
Bringing significant office floorspace back into the city centre, as envisaged in the Mayflower Quarter masterplan brief, is a commendable objective however there has been no new office development in the city centre in the past decade. It is encouraging to see the council include 70,000 sq ft of office floorspace in its proposals for the mixed-use development for the former Toy’s R Us site; this could help reverse the trend of diminishing supply over recent years and, if delivered and occupied, provide confidence for other funders and developers.
An evidence-based, market-informed strategy for the delivery of new employment floorspace, across all sectors, should be a key priority for the plan. This should look, where necessary, beyond the city-boundary, and the duty-to-co-operate with neighbouring authorities, to ensure that the city’s economic potential can be fully realised.
A greener city
The adoption of the Green City Charter, the declaration of a climate emergency, and ongoing concerns on air quality management suggest that environmental sustainability will, quite rightly, be a key theme of the emerging plan.
The council has confirmed that council-owned commercial buildings will be using 100% green electricity and we anticipate that environmental standards for all new building developments will be raised through the local plan review. Development of a green transport network (building on the ongoing improvements to the city’s cycleway network) is also likely to be a priority.
Be part of the discussion
We are excited to see the city embark on the preparation of a new local plan and to share some initial thoughts on the issues it will need to address. We will be contributing to the debate on the future development of the city as the plan moves forward.
If you have land or property interests in the city that you would like to discuss, or if you would like to submit representations or comments to the Issues and Options documents, please contact Mervyn McFarland or Sarah Hockin.
10 February 2020