The end of the
redevelopment scheme
by REX
NEEDLE
The £27 million redevelopment
of Bourne town centre was finally shelved in May 2010,
almost nine years after it was first mooted and without a single brick
being laid. Many thought it doomed from the start yet South Kesteven
District Council doggedly pursued it to the end, spending an exorbitant
amount of money on the project and only then admitting that it is not
feasible and conveniently making the economic recession the scapegoat for
its abandonment.
But that was not the full story. The projected scheme involved the
regeneration of the core designated area, that triangle of land between
West Street, North Street and Burghley Street, and was first mooted in
August 2001 but it eventually appeared that too many properties and parcels of
land were involved and therefore a whole series of negotiations with the
owners to surmount, well over 40 and each one a potential time-consuming
obstacle. Then there was the choice of a developer, a drama in its own
right, but the council appeared unable to find common ground with the
first which was sacked in 2006 while the second withdrew in 2009 when
the council manned panic stations by declaring that the tender process
would open to companies across Europe.
There followed a series of statements trying to paper over the cracks of a
failed project but the end was inevitable with a public that had become
totally disinterested with what was or was not happening and traders who
had been holding their breath for major change long since resigned to
the status quo. Council leader, Linda Neal (Bourne West) finally made a
statement to the Stamford Mercury saying that the £27 million
scheme had been pulled back in favour of a more modest development (Friday
28th May 2010) but that did not fool anyone. No matter the semantics, it
was the end of the end.
This left the council with a number of properties on its hands, prime
sites purchased in the heat of battle in the vain hope that the
development would materialise, most of them at the north end of Wherry’s
Lane and including the former grain warehouse which has been standing
empty for almost a decade and which cost them £350,000 in 2008, although
by January 2010 when it was evident that the redevelopment would not be
going ahead, the council offered it for rent in a desperate attempt to
recoup some of its losses. By June, there had been no takers.
The building carried a large sign saying that it had been acquired for a
proposed new development and indicated that there were still high hopes
that this would come to fruition, although not on the same scale as that
envisaged in 2001 because Councillor Neal told the newspaper that it was
their intention to concentrate on developing a series of shops,
restaurants and flats in the Wherry’s Lane area at an affordable cost of
£5 million. “I am hoping the community will be excited by this”, she said
hopefully, “and that they will want to take part by contributing to the
public consultation within the next month.”
This sounded like another dead duck for with more than 40 food outlets
already trying to do business, the last thing that Bourne needs is more
restaurants. Furthermore, if it was more desirable to implement “a smaller
and more affordable development which can build on the natural
characteristics and positive attributes of the town” - the council’s own
words - then surely this should have been the way forward in the first
place. Instead, millions had been spent on an abortive scheme that had
gone absolutely nowhere.
The tragedy was that the enormous amount of public money wasted would have
been better invested in a north-south bypass which could not only have
been up and running by 2010 but would also have solved the town centre
problems at a stroke, as has already been proved at other Lincolnshire
market towns such as Spalding, Stamford, Sleaford and Brigg, now all
pedestrianised and free from through traffic. As with all major road
projects, this would have been the province of Lincolnshire County
Council, the highways authority, and the Department for Transport, but
such a project would have brought untold benefits to Bourne. Instead, the
town centre redevelopment will not only go down in history as a flawed
scheme but also a lost opportunity that will not recur for decades to
come.
News report from The Local on Friday 4th June 2010
NOTE: This is an edited version of the
Bourne Diary entry for 5th June 2010.
JUST FANCY THAT |
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Newspaper headlines reflect Bourne's changing fortunes from 12th February 2010 for a
£27 million investment
to 2nd July 2010
for a scheme costing £4-5 million. |
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