Tax Office Closing...

[clockstand pie chuka]

[QUOTE=Baron Green Crack;12655007]The only way I see out of it is to somehow try to attract a large (high-tec/skilled) employer to the city centre which will in turn hopefully attract other businesses and subsequently more investment. A developer will not invest in offices space speculatively at this time and certainly not in Sunderland. The developer requires a long lease covenant in order to raise the finance (and remove the risk for them) to invest in office development in Sunderland. My concern is that Newcastle has the private sector sewn up in that respect and that it would be more likely that we'd need a public sector organisation to step at least in the first instance to kick start the redevelopment of the city centre.

Beyond this the only alternative for the Vaux site would be to create some sort of high quality housing development (with a degree of mixed-use) in order to somehow make Sunderland the place to live in the North East (a lot easier said than done) and almost resign itself to being a commuter city to Newcastle.


But they won't come because of the lack of parking, remember

Originally Posted by Baron Green Crack

Have they really got £100m+ in the bank? Has this been proven (I honestly dont know either way for the record)?

They did invest money in Pools in new leisure centres both in Silksworth and Houghton, the 50m Pool, there has also been a lot of investment in customer service centres such Bunny Hill, Sand Hill View Centre, Washington and the like (Software City?), not forgetting the investment to avoid compulsory redundancies (again not sure if that is strictly true).

They have invested money but not specifically in the city centre although I'm sure they have somewhere in the region of £10m-£20m allocated to the redevelopment of the Vaux site. I also believe they are investing something like £30m+ (I'm not so sure they should be mind you) in the new bridge and SSTC.

I imagine the Crowtree Leisure Centre will be sold off (although there is a conflict with the redevelopment of Holmeside) and the Seaburn Centre will also probably be sold off unless they have plans for the site itself.

It was brought up at a council meeting, and a taxi driver that was there seemed to know quite a bit of what they had in the bank and it was admitted that the council have actually 190 million in the bank.

[Baron Green Crack]

[QUOTE=clockstand pie chuka;12655945]

Originally Posted by Baron Green Crack

The only way I see out of it is to somehow try to attract a large (high-tec/skilled) employer to the city centre which will in turn hopefully attract other businesses and subsequently more investment. A developer will not invest in offices space speculatively at this time and certainly not in Sunderland. The developer requires a long lease covenant in order to raise the finance (and remove the risk for them) to invest in office development in Sunderland. My concern is that Newcastle has the private sector sewn up in that respect and that it would be more likely that we'd need a public sector organisation to step at least in the first instance to kick start the redevelopment of the city centre.

Beyond this the only alternative for the Vaux site would be to create some sort of high quality housing development (with a degree of mixed-use) in order to somehow make Sunderland the place to live in the North East (a lot easier said than done) and almost resign itself to being a commuter city to Newcastle.

But they won't come because of the lack of parking, remember

It was brought up at a council meeting, and a taxi driver that was there seemed to know quite a bit of what they had in the bank and it was admitted that the council have actually 190 million in the bank.

My point about the parking wasn't in regard to attracting new business to the city centre but more your point that the Council should move the call centres at Doxford International to the City Centre. I still stand by the point that a call centre organisation would be more likely to locate itself at Doxford International at this moment in time than the City Centre as rates & rents are likely to be cheaper and Doxford International is served by a greater degree of car parking. The only reason why this would change, in my opinion, is if there was a technological requirement which only the City Centre location could serve, there is a specific business need or most importantly (and the ultimate deciding factor) if there was a rent-free / discounted lease period.

I hadn't realised you were a developer yourself or a property expert

As for the £190m I honestly dont know but find it hard to believe that they have that much money. I can understand there being a sinking / contingency fund as such but not that the other £190m is not currently allocated. Also how have they been able to build up such an amount?