Wokingham Town centre redevelopment looks positive with strong interest from developers
Wokingham Borough Council is committed to seeing improvements made to Wokingham town centre to improve its vitality and viability and will do everything reasonable within its power to see these happen to ensure Wokingham residents use and enjoy the town.
Wokingham Chief executive Susan Law said: “This direct action to ensure that regeneration of the town centre actually occurs is certainly on the cards now that we have taken steps to bring the Rose Street car park back into the council’s ownership. With this key piece of land back in council hands, we will have the opportunity of finding and working with a partner whose financial strength and experience in town centre redevelopment will complement our ability to represent what the people of Wokingham want by way of development.
“Already the council has published a notice in the Official Journal of the European Union* (OJEU) inviting expressions of interest to work jointly with the council to regenerate Wokingham town centre, not just Peach Place. This notice allows the council to have a direct interest in the development and already we have received a high level of initial interest. The fact that some 50 initial enquiries have come in indicates that Wokingham town centre is still an attractive place for development, despite the current economic downturn.
“In addition, the public workshop held on Saturday June 28 to look at the redevelopment of Wokingham town centre as a whole has also given us food for thought with real debate and brainstorming taking place, resulting in some radical ideas that are certainly worth exploring.
“One of the over-riding wishes of the people present at both this workshop and the one held in January was for the council to take an active role in the regeneration of the town centre. And that is exactly what we are going to do.
“By having an ownership stake in the future development, the council can better control what is developed and when it happens, without the town of Wokingham being prey to the priorities of any single private developer.”
Cllr Matt Deegan, executive member for Wokingham community regeneration, said: “We are going to facilitate the whole process to ensure we have the right developer in place to regenerate Wokingham town centre for the benefit of everyone and this must be done in a coordinated way. I am delighted that we have had such an excellent response from prospective developers already.”
After the closing date for expressions of interest has passed and the pre-qualification questionnaires have been received by the end of August, the next step is for the Wokingham council to sift and select a longlist of developers by early October. The aim with then be to shortlist a small number of prospective developers by December, with a view to starting the competitive dialogue with the prospective developers in January 2009.
Susan Law said: “We all want to see progress made on improving the town centre and making it an even more vibrant place for all to enjoy and I’m looking forward to working with local people to get these improvements under way. I cannot deny that the regeneration of Wokingham town centre won’t take time because it will – but rest assured it will happen.”
Wokingham Chief executive Susan Law said: “This direct action to ensure that regeneration of the town centre actually occurs is certainly on the cards now that we have taken steps to bring the Rose Street car park back into the council’s ownership. With this key piece of land back in council hands, we will have the opportunity of finding and working with a partner whose financial strength and experience in town centre redevelopment will complement our ability to represent what the people of Wokingham want by way of development.
“Already the council has published a notice in the Official Journal of the European Union* (OJEU) inviting expressions of interest to work jointly with the council to regenerate Wokingham town centre, not just Peach Place. This notice allows the council to have a direct interest in the development and already we have received a high level of initial interest. The fact that some 50 initial enquiries have come in indicates that Wokingham town centre is still an attractive place for development, despite the current economic downturn.
“In addition, the public workshop held on Saturday June 28 to look at the redevelopment of Wokingham town centre as a whole has also given us food for thought with real debate and brainstorming taking place, resulting in some radical ideas that are certainly worth exploring.
“One of the over-riding wishes of the people present at both this workshop and the one held in January was for the council to take an active role in the regeneration of the town centre. And that is exactly what we are going to do.
“By having an ownership stake in the future development, the council can better control what is developed and when it happens, without the town of Wokingham being prey to the priorities of any single private developer.”
Cllr Matt Deegan, executive member for Wokingham community regeneration, said: “We are going to facilitate the whole process to ensure we have the right developer in place to regenerate Wokingham town centre for the benefit of everyone and this must be done in a coordinated way. I am delighted that we have had such an excellent response from prospective developers already.”
After the closing date for expressions of interest has passed and the pre-qualification questionnaires have been received by the end of August, the next step is for the Wokingham council to sift and select a longlist of developers by early October. The aim with then be to shortlist a small number of prospective developers by December, with a view to starting the competitive dialogue with the prospective developers in January 2009.
Susan Law said: “We all want to see progress made on improving the town centre and making it an even more vibrant place for all to enjoy and I’m looking forward to working with local people to get these improvements under way. I cannot deny that the regeneration of Wokingham town centre won’t take time because it will – but rest assured it will happen.”
Wokingham Borough Council
<< Home