Issue - meetings

Report for Decision

ORDERED that Executive:

1.    Approve the appointment of Capital and Centric as the Council’s development partner to lead the regeneration and development of Middlehaven.

2.    Approve the use of £3.6m from the Towns Fund grant allocation for Urban Living and Placemaking to develop designs up to RIBA Stage 4 to enable the procurement of a main contractor.

3.    Delegates authority to the Section 151 Officer (in consultation with the Director of Regeneration) to agree any variations to the proposals within the overall budget allocation.

The Executive Member for Development submitted a report for Executive’s consideration. The purpose of the report sought approval to appoint Capital and Centric as the Council’s development partner to lead the regeneration of Middlehaven and develop proposals for the area up to RIBA Stage 4.

Middlehaven was the key regeneration area in Middlesbrough, with the potential to transform the economic prospects of the town, and provide new communities for people to live in. Its proximity to, and influence on, the town centre made it vitally important that the development of Middlehaven was taken forward successfully.

The development of Middlehaven had been underway for some time and had seen a number of projects on site in recent years including:

·         Completion of Boho X, the 60,000 sq ft headquarters of Double 11

·         Outwood Riverside secondary school scheduled to be complete by Spring 2027

·         Completion of the TTE technical training facility in March 2025

The ongoing investment in Middlesbrough Railway Station and Exchange Square also provided a much improved gateway into the area. Middlehaven was, however, most notably home to the fastest growing tech cluster outside of London within the Boho Zone, with innovative companies providing hundreds of digital jobs, serving clients including Microsoft and Sony.

The growth of the digital sector had been rapid and expansive, but risks being limited by a lack of available urban living options for young professionals who were not seeking the traditional suburban product available in the rest of the town. Unless a housing offer developed at the same pace as the sector, highly trained and highly sought after young people will potentially seek accommodation elsewhere.

It was therefore critical to the future success of the town that Middlehaven was developed.

The Executive Member for Development stated that previous initiatives to develop Middlehaven had been piecemeal, but this now needed to have a joined up approach. However, there was also a need to exercise caution to ensure the development of Middlehaven was robust.

The Executive Member for Children’s Services agreed that while some caution should be exercised this was an exciting development for Middlesbrough and would be a be a significant boost to both the Middlehaven area and the town centre generally.

The Mayor stated he was confident about the development, and that it presented an opportunity to support Middlesbrough’s next industry. The Mayor also stated the decision had been reached using robust governance and financial procedures and he was excited to see how communities could be involved.

The Mayor stated that for initiatives such as this it was important that all key stakeholders, such as Teesside University, were involved in the process as much as possible.

OPTIONS

The Middlehaven site was identified in the Mayoral Development Corporation – Consultation report that was endorsed by Executive on the 22 February 2023.

The previous proposal to transfer a number of Council assets over to the MDC had been paused by the Secretary of State due to wider concerns over the governance of mayoral development corporations.

In the absence  ...  view the full minutes text for item 48