21st Century Regeneration of a World Heritage City

Jan 15 2008 By The Journal

AN ambitious public-private partnership is driving the regeneration of the historic City of Durham. Spearheaded by the recently appointed Regeneration Team, it has already commenced the delivery of many of the key projects set out in the Durham City Masterplan to the benefit of those who live, work, study, invest in or visit the historic city.

The Durham City Vision project is a vision for Durham city in the year 2020, and will:

Raise the economic competitiveness of the city while retaining its remarkable cultural heritage.

• Revitalise the fabric of the city centre; its buildings, places and spaces.

• Improve retail, leisure, culture and employment opportunities in the city.

The Durham City Vision partnership boasts board members drawn from the City of Durham Council, Durham County Council, regional development agency One NorthEast, Durham University, Durham Cathedral and the North East Chamber of Commerce.

The project has significant funding support from One NorthEast through the County Durham Economic Partnership, from other organisations represented on the board and from other public and private sector sources.

Durham’s ambition

Durham attracts many visitors to marvel at the majesty of the World Heritage Site of Durham Cathedral and Castle, as well as the city’s rich history and architecture. The city is also home to one of the country’s leading universities, attracting some of the brightest students from the UK and with more than 2,000 international students from 120 countries.

Despite these obvious merits, there has been a perception that the city’s “offer”, in terms of retail, leisure and cultural facilities and the quality of its public spaces lags behind its massive potential which has led to reduced employment opportunities and poor economic performance in recent years. Driving regeneration in this World Heritage Site city requires overcoming many complex challenges.

As regeneration manager at Durham City Vision, it is the task of Harvey Dowdy – who took on her new role earlier this year – to rise to those challenges and improve the city’s economic competitiveness so it fulfills its potential as a key regional driver for wealth creation.

Harvey, 45, brings to the task in-depth knowledge and broad experience as a chartered surveyor working in commercial property in the public, private and voluntary sectors. Born in London, she is a graduate of University College London and Reading University.

Prior to taking on her new role, she was at One NorthEast, having previously worked for North of England Civic Trust, where she was responsible for delivering the successful restoration of the historic Gayle Mill, in Wensleydale, which featured in a TV vote on the BBC’s Restoration programme.

Her CV also includes time as a commercial property specialist and developer for English Heritage, the National Trust, the City of York and a wide range of institutional investors as a commercial property manager and developer.

What the Vision delivers

“The Durham City Vision Masterplan set out some big ambitions for the city and in the short time that my team has been in place we have begun to really deliver some of those ambitions on behalf of all our partners,” said Harvey.

The Vision team has three main strands of activity:

• Capital projects;

• Supporting infrastructure;

• Improving the vitality of the city by working with partners to co-ordinate major events and activities within the city.

Major capital projects include the redevelopment of the city’s neglected North Road area, and in May, One NorthEast approved spending of £3.4m to allow Durham County Council to acquire strategically important property in the area of the bus station to create the opportunity to bring forward a comprehensive mixed-use development that could transform the area.

Durham City Vision has also taken the lead in helping to facilitate appropriate development of the landmark former ice rink site by bringing relevant parties together to enable the completion of a design brief.

The Regeneration Team has also worked with the North of England Civic Trust to broker an agreement between Durham Cathedral Chapter and Durham University for the provision of a World Heritage Site Visitor Centre near Palace Green to serve the Cathedral and Castle World Heritage Site and is also working to develop a major £5m project to revitalise Durham Riverbanks Gardens.

Infrastructure initiatives include the improvement of the city’s public spaces, with the historic Market Place and Vennels a key priority for development.

Other infrastructure developments include the Durham Vision’s bold approach to lighting the city in a sensitive and environmentally-conscious way. The investment figure for the Light and Darkness Strategy should come to £3.14m and has already earned extensive publicity. Durham’s Light and Darkness Strategy will make Durham a leader in:

• Environmentally efficient lighting;

• Minimising light pollution;

• Making clever use of both light and darkness;

• Building the infrastructure for a range of light and darkness-based events.

The multi-award-winning Speirs and Major Associates, the consultants for the strategy, has worked on four Stirling prize-winning teams and its headline work has included the interior of St Paul’s Cathedral, Kew Gardens, the Millennium Dome at Greenwich, Gateshead Millennium Bridge and Dubai’s Burj Al Arab Tower. Mark Major, partner in the lighting architects firm, says: “The aim of this Light and Darkness Strategy is to provide a creative and technical framework by which the true potential of Durham can be realised once darkness falls.”

Aspects of the strategy related to the Market Place area could be in place as soon as 2010, with a target of five years to complete other key elements.

Durham City Vision is working with the city’s retailers and with consultants Miller Research on ways to broaden and deepen the city’s retail offer by developing its distinctiveness as a shopping destination. Durham City Vision is sponsoring the award for the Small Retailer of the Year at The City of Durham Retail Awards to be held on Palace Green in December 2007.

Harvey added: “A key role of the team is to create confidence in the private sector in investing in Durham. The significant building work happening throughout the city including the new housing, bars, restaurants and hotels is evidence that Durham City is open for business.”

The team is also working hard to “join up” the regeneration of Durham. In particular, the team is working closely with the Learning and Skills Council, Job Centre Plus, Business Link North East and the County Durham Tourism Partnership to provide a tailored training support programme for retailers, hotels, bars and restaurants and other major employers in the city.

This will provide opportunities to earn the skills they need to grow and develop their businesses. An event is planned for early 2008 to publicise the training, which will be free or at subsidised rates.

The Durham Necklace Park

Along with Durham Cathedral and Durham Castle – together comprising the city’s Unesco World Heritage Site – Durham Necklace Park is recognised in the 2020 Vision as one of Durham’s three great natural and historic attributes.

Durham Necklace Park comprises 12 miles of outstanding riverside environment which aims to link public spaces along the river as it passes from Sunderland Bridge to Finchale Abbey.

Plans to re-open the spectacular Belmont viaduct to create routes for pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders formed part of the national Sustrans Connect2 TV bid for Big Lottery funding in December.

Events

Durham City Vision’s Events team, working closely with partners, is:

Developing an ambitious, distinctive and aspirational events programme for the City;

• Developing new events such as ‘D3: The Durham International Busking Festival’ and future events such as the Durham Food and Drink Festival;

• Helping to develop existing events such as the Durham Book Festival;

• Raising the quality benchmark for events in the city, such as the recent successful Jools Holland event.

The team has made a significant impact on the city already and this is planned to grow significantly in 2008. The events team and Durham City Arts are working together on a project which has been shortlisted for support by the NewcastleGateshead Initiative Culture 10 team for the 2008 Regional Cultural Events Programme.

Much progress has already been made but there is still a big job to do – 2008 will prove to be an exciting time for the regeneration of this World Heritage Site city.