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
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.