Blackpool is entering a new era of regeneration to underpin its vision to be ‘a world class resort destination that is a great place to visit, a better place to live’.
The Blackpool Masterplan aims to transform the town and encapsulates a programme designed to rebuild the seafront, provide new tram infrastructure, release key town centre and seafront sites for development, win the UKs only regional casino licence, and forge partnerships with developers and investors. Blackpool Council is working closely with a new urban regeneration company – ReBlackpool – to ensure a strategic approach to implementing the Masterplan.
As the physical transformation takes shape, Blackpool Council and its key partners, recognise the need to ensure that change has a positive impact upon the lives of deprived individuals and families living in Blackpool. A range of strategies and programmes are being rolled out to engage with and ensure maximum benefit to local residents and businesses. Taken together these actions provide a regeneration framework that supports ReBlackpool’s Investment Plan for Sustainable Resort Regeneration.
A range of exciting regeneration projects and programmes have already been completed, are on-going, or at an advanced stage of planning under the following headings, including .
Resort Regeneration
- Improving key gateways into the town including the completion of the Southern Gateway project featuring the world’s largest mirror ball; and the £14m Central Gateway project featuring the new George Bancroft park, the first new park to be built in the town since Stanley park in 1926
- Securing £62m for the dramatic reshaping of the sea wall between north and south piers, currently under construction.
- Invested £4.5m in Sandcastle waterworld, increasing visitor numbers and income
- Established a Tourism Support Bureau to support small businesses, and to improve the accommodation offer through such initiatives as Invest in the Best, and schemes to support a huge increase in accreditation in Blackpool’s hotels and guesthouses.
- Blackpool Zoo has invested £5m during the lst year to create new enclosures, year round exhibits (e.g. the Dinosaur park), new conference and exhibition space, new hops and café, and an outdoor exhibition theatre. Approximately £10m will be invested in the next 2 years to create a range of additional facilities including educational space, a crèche, and a new Disney linked exhibition
Town Centre Regeneration
- Acquiring properties and setting out a development prospectus for the regeneration of the site around Talbot Road, to enable the creation of a brand new civic centre, including improved shopping facilities, and other improvements to the area around Blackpool North Station.
- The extension of the Hounds Hill Shopping centre, featuring a new Debenhams department store.
- The development of one of the country’s first Business Improvement Districts, a private sector led approach to raising additional income to invest in Blackpool town centre’s public realm.
Economic Development
- Development of Blackpool Business Park and Technology Park, and specialist incubator facilities such as the Solaris centre for sustainable development
- The establishment of a Local Economic Partnership, and a Fylde Coast Leading Employers Forum
- A commitment by Blackpool Council, ReBlackpool and the PCT to the local procurement of goods and services and strategies to employ local people
- Blackpool International Airport is the fastest growing airport in the UK and is undergoing a multimillion pound refurbishment and modernisation to create new infrastructure, passenger facilities, new air routes, and car parking. This work has already seen a tenfold increase in passengers from 70,000 in 2002 to 700,000 now, aiming to increase to 6 million passengers by 2014
Skills & Enterprise
- The development of a new £2.8m Enterprise Centre on the site of the former LIDO baths in South Shore, supporting small firm development and skills and employment strategies linked to masterplan investment.
- Blackpool & Fylde College has been designated a Centre of Vocational Excellence (CoVE) for three curriculum areas including Customer Service Quality for Tourism, and Building Services
- Blackpool & the Fylde College intends to launch its new regional gaming academy in February 2006, and has aspirations to create a new Higher Education campus in central Blackpool as a centre of excellence for gaming, casino, tourism, travel and other professional programmes to support key skills growth areas in the town
Many of these projects have been funded by a combination of funding from Blackpool Council, the European Regional Development Fund, Northwest Development Agency (including Single Regeneration Budget), the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund, the Learning & Skills Council, and the private sector, to name but a few. Specialist external funding and monitoring teams within the Council’s Enterprise and Employment Division appraise, bid for, and monitor the implementation of a wide range of these funding programmes. |