A few years ago Preston City Council unveiled its masterplan for commercial prosperity in Britain’s newest city, in the form of the £700m Tithebarn scheme.
The council declared, the scheme will ‘transform over half of the existing city centre, creating a place that is modern, vibrant and enduring. Encompassing new shops, leisure facilities and a new bus station, there is everything you would expect to find in a 21st century city.
A key feature of the scheme is the creation of a new commercial property quarter in the heart of the city, which would provide offices for new and existing business’ within the city. This is something Preston city centre desperately needs. At the moment there isn’t a great deal of choice when it comes to serviced office space, forcing many business’ to leave the city centre and seek accommodation elsewhere.
Work on the ambitious project is yet to begin though. Planning permission was granted on 23 November 2010 and it was hoped that work would commence shortly after.
This was until, in December 2010, Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council lodged a legal challenge to the Secretary of State’s decision to grant planning permission. With Darwen Borough Council stating that it believes the project to be a threat to their towns’ commercial future.
This has infuriated Preston City Council officials and they believe that Darwen Borough Council, are appealing the plans as they are jealous of the expansion of Preston.
So with plans appearing to be up in the air at the moment the commercial property sector of Preston will be hoping any issues can be resolved as quickly as possible.
One thing is for sure, if or indeed when, the plans receive the go ahead for a second time, Preston’s commercial future will be looking very bright. And it is not impossible that we could one day see Preston seriously challenging the North West’s commercial powerhouses of Manchester and Liverpool.
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