Related Articles
Stoke-on-Trent City Council has ended its 31-year joint venture with St Modwen which delivered a series of major regeneration projects across the Potteries. The council sold its 19 per cent stake in Stoke-on-Trent Regeneration Limited to St Modwen for £5 million last month, finally bringing to an end a partnership that was launched back in 1993.
While the company is still active, its main aim of regenerating key sites in Stoke-on-Trent has now been mostly achieved and Stoke-on-Trent Regeneration Ltd is now set to be wound up. The city council said that now was a ‘sensible time’ to sell its shares in the company – although there are concerns that the sale leaves St Modwen in full control of a number of greenfield sites, including parts of Berryhill Fields.
With the Stoke-on-Trent Regeneration story now coming to an end, here is a rundown on some of the company’s achievements over the last three decades.
READ: City council sells £5m stake in regeneration firm to St Modwen – Critics say it is a bad deal that could lead to green spaces like Berryhill Fields being developed
READ: Wanted: Private developer to plough £100 million into transforming Hanley – Stoke-on-Trent City Council says it cannot afford to take forward the key city centre regeneration site itself
Etruria Valley
In 1988, the city council chose St Modwen to turn the 165-acre Garden Festival site, created on the former Shelton Bar Steelworks, into a mixed-use business park. The result was the highly successful Festival Park, now home to national chains such as Morrisons, Next, Frankie and Benny’s and McDonald’s.
Following the formation of Stoke-on-Trent Regeneration in 1993, and with steel production continuing to decline, an agreement was reached with British Steel, which later became Corus, to regenerate a further 30 acres of industrial land. This resulted in the first phase of the Etruria Valley development, initially providing new premises for the likes of George Hall, Royal Doulton and Consignia.
Stoke-on-Trent Regeneration Ltd made a second agreement with Corus in 2002, following the closure of the steel rolling mill, to develop another 90 acres. This phase would add more than a million square feet of employment floorspace to Etruria Valley, which would later be rebranded as St Modwen Park Stoke Central.
The final expansion of St Modwen Park Stoke Central came in 2019, when St Modwen purchased the last 46 acres of land from Tata Steel, enabling it provide another 800,000 sq ft of industrial and logistics space. By 2019, Festival Park and Etruria Valley together covered 290 acres, with 315,000 sq ft of retail space, 166,000 sq ft of leisure space, including WaterWorld and the Odeon Cinema, more than 30 office buildings and 376,000 sq ft of industrial and logistics space.
Trentham Lakes
Stoke-on-Trent Regeneration Ltd has also led the development of Trentham Lakes – a 400-acre mixed use scheme on the site of the former Hem Heath Colliery at the southern end of the city. In addition to the Britannia (now bet365) Stadium, Stoke City’s new home, the initial phases of Trentham Lakes, starting in the 1990s, also saw the construction of a Holiday Inn hotel, a Harvester restaurant, an HSBC call centre and Greens Health and Fitness Club.
Trentham Lakes continued to expand into the 2000s with several car dealerships, warehouses like Amazon’s huge distribution centre, and 275 homes. The 11-acre Trentham South development, which was completed in 2010, provided 50 commercial and retail buildings for the likes of Aldi, Screwfix and Autoglass.
Fenton Trade Park
In 2007, Stoke-on-Trent Regeneration Ltd started redeveloping a 25-acre site at Fenton previously occupied by Staffordshire coal Authority’s headquarters. The first occupiers of Fenton Trade Park, a 60,000 sq ft speculative industrial and distribution development, moved in the following year.
By 2011, all but two of the 22 of the scheme’s small units had been occupied.
Undeveloped plans
But it has not all been plain sailing for Stoke-on-Trent Regeneration over the last 31 years. In 2018, the company withdrew controversial plans to build up to 100 executive homes on Green Belt land off Lightwood Road in Lightwood.
This had been the second time Stoke-on-Trent Regeneration Ltd had attempted to secure outline planning permission for the development, and it attracted more than 1,700 letters of objection.
The scheme had been recommended for refusal by planning officers at the city council. This effectively meant that the city council, as a planning authority, was standing in opposition to a development company part-owned by the council.
Just days before the planning committee was due to make a decision, Stoke-on-Trent Regeneration Ltd pulled their proposals. But the land is one of several greenfield sites across the city still owned by the company, which, following the council’s decision to sell its shares, is now under the full control of St Modwen.
Sign up to our main daily newsletter here and get all the latest news straight to your inbox for FREE
