Rob Ellis, who lives in Gloucester and works as a consultant for SF Planning in Cheltenham, is confident the King's Quarter redevelopment will lead to the wider regeneration of the city centre.
Whilst not Gloucester born and bred, I have lived here on and off for a large proportion of my life. After a brief dalliance with the Home Counties, involving working in London, Surrey and Reading, I moved back to Gloucester to give my young family a better quality of life. Really? I hear you say. Better than Aldershot? Absolutely! I am passionate about the area and this city, until you move away you take for granted just how good life can be here. The heritage, the countryside, the schools etc. all just as good, if not better than anywhere else in the UK.
Gloucester has always had potential in my view, given its strategic location and historical significance at the "Crossroads of England". The Romans weren't daft! That being said, as a planning consultant by trade at SF Planning Ltd in Cheltenham, I'm not blinkered to the problems that the city has had for many years, there are a few. One of the main issues has been how to arrest the seemingly terminal deterioration of the city centre, not only as a place to shop, but also as a regional leisure, recreation and night time economy destination.
It's abundantly clear that the city centre has not had the attention it has so desperately needed, either through lack of funding or visionary strategic forethought, leading to the marked and steady decline since the Jellicoe Plan was actioned in the 1960s/70s. Safe to say, the replacement of many historic buildings in this era with concrete brutalism, all in the name of progress, has not stood the test of time.
When I first moved into the area in 1993 there was talk of the regeneration of Kings Square and Blackfriars, which no doubt preceded my arrival too! Since this time there have been many false dawns for these two key developments, which has seen the City Centre slip further behind its local and regional competitors. The key has always been how to successfully marry the City's remaining heritage with appropriate modern development through regeneration.
The seeds of regeneration were sown by the effective Gloucester Heritage Urban Regeneration Company and the last ten years have seen some herculean steps at the Docks and the Quays, but the City Centre still had to wait its turn, until now.
With funding now secured, property bought up and developers in place, Kings Quarter, including the new bus station is fast becoming a reality. The recent announcement that award winning international architects Chapman Taylor have been instructed to design the scheme is truly exciting. In this single instruction, it is clear that the council does not want to make the same mistakes that were made 50 years ago. I just hope that Christmas 2018 is a realistic target.
I'm confident that Kings Quarter will be the catalyst for the revival of the city centre, in turn laying the foundations for Blackfriars, and I would urge all residents to have their say on the proposals in the upcoming public consultations. This has all the hallmarks of being regeneration we can all be proud of and in 50 years' time we can say that it was the key to unlocking Gloucester's potential.
