One NorthEast - Developing a vision of Durham City's future

Sep 14 2006 North East Vision

The City of Durham is a beautiful, cultural asset for the North East region, attracting substantial numbers of visitors to visit the attractions of the Cathedral and the Castle and to soak up the atmosphere of the city's rich history and architecture.

But despite Durham's many positive aspects, the Durham `experience' has been marred by the lack of retail, leisure and cultural facilities, deteriorating public spaces, limited employment opportunities and an underperforming economy.

The Durham 2020 Vision Draft Masterplan sets out the changes that are necessary to address the city's current shortcomings, raise its economic competitiveness and fulfil its potential as a key regional driver for wealth creation.

It suggests a wide range of strategies, objectives and proposals to improve the city's economic vitality, protect its historic environment and revitalise the retailing and cultural facilities in the city centre, making it a better place for everyone that uses it.

The draft Vision for Durham City Centre has evolved throughout 2005 and the first half of 2006, following the formation of the Durham City Steering Group in 2003.

City of Durham Council, Durham County Council and One NorthEast commissioned the Vision with support from the University of Durham and Durham Cathedral.

Town planning and urban design consultants, David Lock Associates, have led the consultant team, that has included architects, property, transport and finance consultants, that have helped formulate the Vision.

The Vision for Durham City uses at its starting point an analysis of the existing characteristics of Durham city centre, looking beyond the physical characteristics and taking into consideration how people uses the places and spaces, what people really value and how the city centre could change for the better.

The Draft Masterplan was launched for public comment in August and will run until October 13, 2006.

John Holmes, director of regeneration and tourism at One NorthEast, commented "One NorthEast's vision is that the North East of England will become a sought after destination 365 days a year - for leisure and business visitors - with activities, attractions, facilities and accommodation that consistently exceed visitor expectations.

"Durham 2020 Vision is a vital initiative that will go a significant way towards ensuring that our vision is realised. Durham has enormous potential and One NorthEast is pleased to support an initiative that reinforces Durham's importance as a major contributor to the North East's economy."

The Durham City Vision will create an exciting new future for residents, businesses and visitors between now and the year 2020.

Tracey Ingle is head of cultural services at City of Durham Council. She said: "Durham is rightly proud of its heritage and our business' and citizens' pride and engagement in the emerging Vision for the City.

The people of Durham have embraced the concept of a new Vision for the City. Using this positive encouragement the Partnership has written the 2020 Vision Masterplan.

This will set out how we can all take the next steps to bring about a general economic uplift across the city, improve our retail and leisure offer and to ensure the city moves forward in a planned and considered way; with care of our heritage at its heart.

"The masterplan responds to the city and county's businesses' and residents' views, alongside those of our visitors. The response to this consultation has been very positive.

In the first four days of public consultation, the 2020 Vision website recorded nearly 31,000 hits compared with 40,646 for the whole of August.

"The creation of the Masterplan has been challenging, but the Partnership has been amazed and buoyed by the support and enthusiasm of business, residents and visitors for planning our future together.

"The next challenge is to realise the full potential of the city and surrounding areas by implementing the masterplan.

With a positive response to this consultation we aim to have a final version of the masterplan published by the end of this year, and start the rewarding process of making the masterplan a reality"

The draft masterplan document and further information is available at www.durhamvision.org.uk.

Once comments have been received, the draft masterplan will be reviewed and a final version will be published in early 2007.

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Meeting needs of those destined for North-East

Once they're here, visitors to our region have always been impressed by how much we have to offer and the friendly welcome they receive. The biggest challenge has been getting them here in the first place.

Since taking over responsibility for tourism, One NorthEast has set about tackling this challenge head on, focussing a huge amount of effort on its marketing and promotion of the region to change perceptions of the North-East and attract both visitors and business investment.

A key element of securing visits is the provision of inspirational marketing messages backed up with accurate comprehensive information which leads to visits to the region and sales for businesses.

More and more travellers are turning to the internet when it comes to deciding where to take holidays. Bookings through the internet are growing faster than through any other marketing channel and are forecast to reach 50% of all holidaymakers over the next few years.

To make sure the North-East doesn't miss out on this trend, One NorthEast is about to launch Desti.ne, the most up to date tourism e-business platform in the United Kingdom.

However, Desti.ne is more than just a website. It will provide attractions, event organisers and accommodation providers with online booking similar to that used by larger hotel chains.

It will help tourism businesses reach visitors across the globe, making it affordable for even the smallest tourism businesses to access international markets and conduct sales in the online market place.

Louise Davis, head of tourism at One NorthEast, said: "Desti.ne will be a giant leap forward for the visitor economy in this region, it will make online booking affordable for many of the smaller tourism businesses which previously wouldn't have had access to e-commerce.

We recognise that trading online might be daunting for some businesses and that there are potential barriers, such as the costs involved and a wariness in relation to handling financial transactions online, but the Desti.ne Frontdesk system has been designed to overcome these barriers."

The 15 businesses involved in the testing phase of Desti.ne Frontdesk have had some impressive results, without any direct marketing Desti.ne helped them secure over £14,000 worth of business in six weeks with visitors coming from across the UK and Europe as well as bookings from the USA.

Not all businesses will take advantage of online booking but those that don't will still be able to benefit from marketing their business online.

In the click of button, they'll be able to update online prices, opening times and details of the facilities on offer that potential visitors across the world will be able to view.

Accommodation and attractions won't only benefit from the ability to sell and market their businesses online; Desti.ne will also provide them with a host of other benefits.

It has been designed specifically with tourism businesses in mind and will allow owners to control their product information, link to their accounting packages and communicate more effectively with their customers.

Louise added: "Businesses signing up to Desti.ne will also be displayed on www.visitbritain.com and www.enjoyengland.com, the UK's and England's national tourism websites and potentially other major travel portals such as Wanadoo.

It is a fantastic opportunity and businesses will be able to tailor the system to their needs, some will be happy only taking telephone bookings, others will sign up to all the distribution channels but they will all have the opportunity to benefit from using Desti.ne"

For more information about Desti.ne Frontdesk contact Karen.O'donnell@onenortheast.co.uk