How £250m Huddersfield town centre masterplan aims to bring new life to the High Street

The boarded up fronts of units once home to shops, banks, post offices and small businesses have become a sad staple of many a community in a country long-regarded as a ‘nation of shopkeepers’.

Squeezed incomes, a shift to online retail and economic challenges have all been blamed for putting the High Street in jeopardy and creating a crisis which has left town centres nationwide struggling to fight off decline and reinvent themselves as vibrant destinations that pull-in that all important footfall.

It is against this backdrop that Kirklees Council has this week revealed a ten-year masterplan for Huddersfield, with leisure and culture at its heart - a vision described by the authority’s leader as “regeneration in a size I’ve not seen before”.

Radical £250million 10-year masterplan to transform Huddersfield town centre is revealed

Get behind £250m town centre game-changer for Huddersfield – The Yorkshire Post says

Outside the box

“We have to think outside the box and we have to create the future,” Coun Shabir Pandor says.

“What we need to do is change the narrative and look at how we can bring people back into the town centre.”

The Huddersfield Blueprint aims to do just that, with a transformation to the tune of £250m.

Though a smaller, more bespoke retail offering will remain an important part of the West Yorkshire town under the plans, it is culture, art, music and leisure that are at its core, with a focus on community spaces for events and activities and keeping the centre “open for longer”.

The vision, which identifies six key regeneration areas, also looks to celebrate Huddersfield’s heritage, breathe life back into its historic buildings and support new and existing businesses as well as introducing more homes and enhancing streets with the help of green and open spaces.

Time for change

“We recognise that it’s time for change and there’s an evolution that we need to respond to,” says council chief executive Jacqui Gedman. “No longer will town centres be the place where you do all your shopping...that is something that we are having to grapple with.

“In the 21st century, our habits are changing and we need to respond to that. There are great demands on our time and we choose to spend that more wisely because it has become so much more precious.

“Family and leisure time is more important now than it has ever been and we need to have a town that reflects that.”

The masterplan may sound radical but the ideas behind it are not new. In fact, back in 2011, in her independent review of high streets and town centres, carried out for the Government, retail consultant Mary Portas outlined a vision for high streets as “destinations for socialising, culture, health, wellbeing, creativity and learning”.

Wider experience

“The new high streets won’t just be about selling goods,” she wrote. “The mix will include shops but could also include housing, offices, sport, schools or other social, commercial and cultural enterprises and meeting places.

“They should become places where we go to engage with other people in our communities, where shopping is just one small part of a rich mix of activities.”

Bill Grimsey, the former Chief Executive of Iceland, Wickes and Booker, has criticised her review, most recently branding it as “skimming the surface, missing the real fabric changes of my industry and failing to put the warning bells out there of what we were going to face”, when he spoke at the Huddersfield Blueprint launch.

But it appears the pair agree on at least one point, as his own reports also point to a community experience as the way forward for high streets.

He told Wednesday’s audience: “You can no longer put your towns to your community as a proposition based on retailing as the main anchor.

“If you make that step mentally, you will then look to what should it be? And a community hub based on health, education, leisure, housing, arts and some shops will be what the real town looks like in the future.

“It will be unique based on heritage and it will be a wonderful experience - something you remember.”

Local leaders

Mr Grimsey points to uncertainty around Brexit as being in part to blame for declining footfall in town centres, which he says is also impacted by austerity hitting disposable incomes, “not fit for purpose” business rates and online retail giant Amazon.

The clue for change, he says, is repurposing town centres for all aspects of the community and embracing technology - and it is strong leadership on a local, not central level, that is needed to head that.

“I’ve had the chance to see what Huddersfield has put together as a blueprint for the next ten years,” he says. “In anything I’ve seen over the course of this year...this is up there in the top echelon.”

Transformation

At the core of the council’s vision for Huddersfield, which became known as “the town that bought itself” when the then administrative body purchased land from the family that had owned much of the area in 1920, are plans for a new ‘Cultural Heart’.

This would include a new town centre park which would sit in place of the Piazza Shopping Centre and a live music venue, with capacity for up to 1,000 people, being considered for the site currently home to Queensgate Market.

Elsewhere the railway station gateway is earmarked for regeneration, including the redevelopment of the Grade II*-Listed George Hotel, famous as the birthplace of rugby league and a large vacant warehouse, which could in part be converted into office space, apartments or a hotel.

Other highlights include the formation of a creative zone, with co-working spaces and studios, improvements to the bus station and the introduction of a cinema and leisure complex into Kingsgate Shopping Centre.

“Huddersfield was the town that bought itself a century ago,” recalls deputy council leader Peter McBride. “It was remodelled 50 years later with a new ring road, bus station and sports centre and 25 years later, there was a further uplift to the town with the Kingsgate development.

“Now’s the time for a comparable intervention against a backdrop of challenges to traditional retail.

“The masterplan, we believe, will be an effective response to the challenge to define a town of the 21st century, a town that people will want to visit, live in, study in and shop in.”

Pledge to deliver

The authority has identified cash for the scheme from its own pot and says further funding would come from national government, private investors and the West Yorkshire Combined Authority.

“This is not going to be a plan that sits on shelf,” the council’s chief executive says. “This is something that we promise we are going to deliver.”

The goal is a “thriving” town centre, that is accessible to all - and Huddersfield is only the starting point, with the authority planning similar visions for Dewsbury, Batley and other towns and villages within the Kirklees district.

“This is not the plan, it is part of many plans that all dovetail together to put Kirklees back on the map,” says Coun Pandor. “It is about delivering a future that residents feel proud of.”

Its success, of course, remains to be seen, but for Huddersfield at least, the blueprint certainly seems to be ticking the boxes of recommendations made by retail experts.

And as The Yorkshire Post has highlighted through its Love Your High Street campaign, the time is now for urgent action to support town centres.