Albion Square regeneration
Albion Square, Hull
Three Dragons worked with Steer to provide a technical assessment of Hull City Council’s bid to the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) for funding to regenerate Albion Square. This city-centre site contains redundant retail premises that have blighted the locality and been a focus for anti-social behaviour. The funding bid was to enable demolition and remediation, to allow future phases of the regeneration to take place. The strategy for the City Centre is to seek to improve its overall draw as a visitor and shopping destination, and it is considered proposed development objectives for this site help to achieve this goal.
Three Dragons explored the wider circumstances around the proposed scheme, including the economic and social benefits, with the assistance of the City Council. The main issues faced were the relatively high costs of the demolition and remediation compared to the direct economic benefits from site clearance.
However, through the exploration of the wider social benefits and a re-calibration of the economic case and different scenarios, the technical appraisal was able to reduce the areas of concern within the bid and allow the LEP to recommend funding the scheme from the Local Growth Fund.
Demolition contractors have now been appointed by the City Council and the planning for the subsequent mixed-use development is now underway, with consent for 278 residential units, about 180,000 sq ft of retail space, 9,000 sq ft of offices, a multi-storey car park and new public squares. It has also been identiļ¬ed as a potential home for a new ice arena.
