Investing in the past to unlock Nottingham’s cultural and commercial future potential

Redevelopment of a vast site around the former Broadmarsh shopping centre is key to unlocking Nottingham’s potential as a driver for the UK economy. Infrastructure View hears why, despite failure to secure Levelling Up Funding, Nottingham City Council’s long-awaited project will continue to transform the city.

Nottingham City Council has vowed to press ahead with plans to kickstart stalled redevelopment plans for the city’s iconic Broadmarsh Centre shopping centre site despite the government’s recent rejection of its bid for Levelling Up Funds.

While there is clearly disappointment that Whitehall failed to back the Council, the 1970s concrete frame structure remains at the heart of the city’s ambitious multi-billion-pound regeneration vision for the Southside of Nottingham. This includes creating a new Nottingham College City Hub, developing the Island Quarter mixed-use urban village, a new car park, bus station, central library building and major improvements to the public space around the wider Broadmarsh area.

The £20m Levelling Up Fun bid was part of a total £57m package submitted by the city across three major projects. All were rejected but the council’s plans to re-connect and re-establish the cultural and commercial links across the historic heart of the city that were severed when the concrete complex landed in the 1970s will continue, according to Council Leader Cllr David Mellen.

“All three Nottingham bids were very strong and clearly aligned to what the Levelling Up Fund is meant to be about. So it’s a big disappointment that all of them have been turned down,” explained Mellen. “Work will still get underway this year, using national funding we have already secured. We will continue our public realm improvements in the area, which are also funded from a different Government pot.”

A history of change

The Broadmarsh Centre complex was opened in March 1975 on an 8-hectare site to the south of the city. When constructed, the shopping centre, car park, bus station and supporting road network effectively severed the city centre from the rail station and canal.

Plans to redevelop the site and update the shopping centre were originally touted by retail estate giant Westfield over a decade ago but ultimately fell through. New owner Intu took over the site and, over the next half decade, they set out a new vision to turn the shopping centre into a major modern leisure and retail development.

Good progress was made until the Coronavirus pandemic called a halt to all work in March 2020. By June, Intu was in administration, and the City Council took on the role of master developer.

“Intu were in the process of reimagining the shopping centre but left the project at a very challenging stage,” explains Paul Seddon, Director of Planning & Regeneration at Nottingham City Council. “We quickly realised that the overall vision should be broader than simply redeveloping the former shopping centre site.”

Pressing forward with a plan

By late summer 2020, the Council had secured £7.99m in Local Enterprise Partnership funding from the Government’s 'Getting Building' Fund to keep the project moving.

This allowed vital parts of the City Council’s wider Southside regeneration strategy to continue, including reorganising the road layout around the area, reopening a pedestrian walkway through the part-demolished Broadmarsh Centre and completing work on the new Nottingham College City Hub.

But the Council was keen to use the opportunity to rethink its plans for the shopping centre site, and conceived a bold vision that stepped beyond the old retail model and really tapped into the needs of the city and the community. 

“We paused the plans to engage with the local community. We then established the independent Greater Broad Marsh Advisory Group to look beyond the shopping centre and start to really understand the site and its potential,” says Seddon.

Nottingham's Big Conversation

The Big Conversation community engagement programme was launched in October 2020 and by the end of the year had received over 3,000 submissions. Seddon describes it as a “real game changer in terms of setting up the project for success”.

“Many councils beaver away making plans and then ask the community what they think of those ideas,” he says, pointing out that the scale of the potential across Broadmarsh meant Nottingham really needed to think big.

“The Big Conversation was a fundamentally different approach – we asked what people wanted rather than simply asking them to comment on what was suggested. It required patience but meant that we got the groundwork done to help shape the vision and then support our Levelling Up Fund bid.”

Creating the plan – play, performance and food

The outcome of the Big Conversation, he explains, was that the community wanted more than just a new shopping centre. 

The Greater Broadmarsh Advisory Group, led by renowned urban designer Thomas Heatherwick, were tasked with translating this feedback into a deliverable plan.

Heatherwick’s vision includes retaining part of the original 1970s concrete frame as a clear link to the past. But while referencing the area’s social history and heritage, the plan also draws on current local knowledge and experience to help establish what will make locals and visitors come into the city centre.

It also made a case as to why national cultural institutions should move out of London and relocate to find a home in Nottingham. Broadmarsh can provide a fantastic new home in a unique environment.

“The Big Conversation showed that the local community wanted less commercial development and more affordable things to do, more reasons to come into the city and be together. Broadmarsh can provide this inclusive invitation,” says Seddon. He points out that the Levelling Up Fund bid will enable the basic skeleton for the building to be reimagined and built out to a shell and core stage. This de-risks the project and sets the foundation for a hub that will eventually bring people and local skills together.

Under the banner of “play, performance and food,” the plan will now see the retail element driven by local craftsmen and traders to create a critical mass of creative enterprises. 

BroadMarsh at the heart of the Levelling Up challenge

The redeveloped shopping centre will become a green heart in the city with commercial and residential development, but its exact nature is still being worked out. Seddon is clear that, while there will of course be retail elements in the plan, the old retail model cannot be the future driver for the redevelopment.

Delivery of the full plan is likely to take another 10 years and cost upwards of £500m but is expected to create some 3,000 jobs during construction and another 3,000 new jobs once development is complete. On top of this, the scheme should deliver up to 1,000 new homes and over 400,000 sq ft of new business and office space.

“We can't do it alone and have to work out our delivery strategy. We will have produced a coherent master plan and development briefs for the different parts of the vision by Summer 2023 and will continue to work with public sector partners to help bring the plans forward, but the government’s help will be essential,” he explains.

“The next step is to seek out those key public and private partnerships,” he adds. “We are already in discussion with potential long-term partners and a chunk of next year's work will be to look at the scale of Levelling Up funding to see what is possible.”

Crucially the plan will also create the hub for other investment opportunities which are central to the City’s Levelling Up Fund bid. The Bulwell town centre project is seeking £20m to kickstart redevelopment of the area to the north of the city centre, and the Nottingham Island project is looking for £17m to create a plan to potentially lever in £1bn of investment for a huge new mixed-use urban village that’s already starting to take shape.

“One of the most heartening things has been the early reaction from developers and investors in that we are seeing continuous, unsolicited interest from them about getting involved,” he says. “But the whole project is a 10-year plan so we are moving forward by biting off bits of the elephant along the way.”

The next steps 

As the dust settles from the failed bid for Levelling Up Funding, the priority for the project is to continue site preparation by dismantling the remaining 40% of the old Broadmarsh Shopping Centre ready to accept the new vision. 

While a funding path for this work is rethought, a new ‘green heart’ public space the size of Nottingham Forest’s football pitch will be created at the centre of the Broadmarsh area, together with a new children’s play area next to the new Central Library where five lanes of traffic used to accelerate along Collin Street.

Work to fit out the new Central Library also continues and will open in late summer 2023 in a purpose-built space in the new the car park and bus station that the City Council delivered as its part of the development agreement with Intu. The streets between Nottingham Station and the Broadmarsh site, connecting the new college building, new library, bus station and car park building are currently being transformed into high-quality public realm. The City Council area implementing these works using Government Transforming Cities funding.

“Without the Levelling Up Funds, the project won't stop but viability is challenging,” says Seddon. “This is perhaps one of the most important and exciting developments of a city centre seen outside London,” he adds. “It is definitely heading in the right direction and, while there is much work to do, we are certainly on the right track. Without the Levelling Up funding, it will take longer.”

Key aspects of the Heatherwick plan

Rebuilding The Lost Connections
Reinstate many of Nottingham’s lost street connections

A New Green Heart
Creation of a new wildlife-rich green space 

Living by Nottingham Castle 
Over 750 new homes beneath the castle and within walking distance of the train station 

Work by the New Green Heart
New commercial and mixed-use buildings 

The retention of ‘The Frame’
Play, performance, and food, bringing people together in the old centre 

Sleep Above The Caves in a new Art Hotel
A unique hotel and culture trail through the city centre’ caves