Vaux site……

There’s hasn’t been a thread on for a while so hey presto…….

the new civic centre seems to be coming along nicely……..

they need to attract more businesses commercial buildings/office buildings imho.
I think them building homes on it is a waste of prime land. Once people have homes it curtails future growth. Leave the homes to the periphery of the city and bring commerce into the centre. That way it supports other businesses
 


I think you’re wrong, a mix of good quality, affordable city centre living with businesses providing lots of decent paid jobs should be the plan otherwise we may as well build the council offices, shops, eye hospital on cheap out of town land and leave the city centre to decay and rot away.

I think you’re wrong, once land is sold for freehold purposes it makes things very difficult to develop in the future as you’re dealing with multiple entities who have rights to the land…..look at the problems Liverpool have had developing their stadium with homeowners rejecting them. If we pepper the city centre with houses it massively inhibits the opportunity to build projects
We have the one if the smallest city centre populations in the country and people loan about our high street and evening economy being dead. Do you not think there may be something in that?

beat me to it ^

I get that but the massive use of the land for homes is opportunity cost for other projects
Build more homes around the outskirts of the city centre, places like deptford and along the river so it’s easily accessible to the city centre
 
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I think you’re wrong, once land is sold for freehold purposes it makes things very difficult to develop in the future as you’re dealing with multiple entities who have rights to the land…..look at the problems Liverpool have had developing their stadium with homeowners rejecting them. If we pepper the city centre with houses it massively inhibits the opportunity to build projects


I get that but the massive use of the land for homes is opportunity cost for other projects
Build more homes around the outskirts of the city centre, places like deptford and along the river so it’s easily accessible to the city centre

Isn’t that also in the plan, though? I.e along near the new bridge? We also have to be sustainable. While there’s clearly appetite for businesses to relocate here (the investment from L&G for example investing here) surely we have to be realistic in just how much we can attract? That’s not downplaying our offer, as I think we really are a city with something to offer, I just think it’s easier to get carried away with huge projects and it look at the realistic picture.
 
We have the one if the smallest city centre populations in the country and people loan about our high street and evening economy being dead. Do you not think there may be something in that?

beat me to it ^
There isn't a single shop worth visiting
 
Isn’t that also in the plan, though? I.e along near the new bridge? We also have to be sustainable. While there’s clearly appetite for businesses to relocate here (the investment from L&G for example investing here) surely we have to be realistic in just how much we can attract? That’s not downplaying our offer, as I think we really are a city with something to offer, I just think it’s easier to get carried away with huge projects and it look at the realistic picture.

so if you build houses on the vaux site, supposedly meant to be a business hub you’ll effectively stop anything else being built, capping its potential

this is exactly why it’s wrong
Busy city centres have people living in them.
Not in town houses on the central business hub
 
so if you build houses on the vaux site, supposedly meant to be a business hub you’ll effectively stop anything else being built, capping its potential

this is exactly why it’s wrong

Not in town houses on the central business hub

They are building offices though, there’s already one there and two more in the pipeline. Do you genuinely think the demand is there for even more jobs to relocate here? Not being sarcy, I genuinely am interested as I know there’s a trend of jobs shifting out of London and we are likely to be one of the cities to benefit but where do you think we should draw the line to prevent having offices sitting empty?
 
I came out of the SOL after a meeting on Wednesday evening and across the river you could see one of the new Vaux buildings with all the office lights on, the skyline looked great.
 
There's not really any demand for offices atm and there's not really much to attract someone to move an office into Sunderland either.

Sunderland needs an attraction asap, what it is I don't know but there's literally no reason for anyone outside of Sunderland to visit as to put it blunt it's a horrid place to visit. There's no leisure stuff to do, the retail is poor and bar the Winter Gardens there's no museums or anything of interest and that's that the polite way of putting it.

Least some housing might attract more to centre but then you've got the problem of who wants to really live there and it's better than more empty buildings. Hull's reinvented itself a bit the last few years there's no reason why Sunderland can't follow.
 
I think you’re wrong, once land is sold for freehold purposes it makes things very difficult to develop in the future as you’re dealing with multiple entities who have rights to the land…..look at the problems Liverpool have had developing their stadium with homeowners rejecting them. If we pepper the city centre with houses it massively inhibits the opportunity to build projects


I get that but the massive use of the land for homes is opportunity cost for other projects
Build more homes around the outskirts of the city centre, places like deptford and along the river so it’s easily accessible to the city centre

Councils can issues CPO's. Private companies can't.
 
They are building offices though, there’s already one there and two more in the pipeline. Do you genuinely think the demand is there for even more jobs to relocate here? Not being sarcy, I genuinely am interested as I know there’s a trend of jobs shifting out of London and we are likely to be one of the cities to benefit but where do you think we should draw the line to prevent having offices sitting empty?
I’m not saying the demand is there, I’m saying the minute they put houses interspersed around the office buildings it will prevent any future growth. It’s the opportunity cost, houses are free holds meaning thered be multiple hurdles if they ever wished to increase the commerce on the vaux site in the future. What they’ll have is ALL it could ever be!
they’d be better filling the empty spaces with events stuff, like the stack. That way it’s safeguards the potential for future growth……..Sunderland city centre desperately need growth.
Councils can issues CPO's. Private companies can't.
They do but they’re costly. People judge the council as much it’s ability to plan for the future as much as delivering for the present. The city is hollowed out with commerce on the outskirts (rainton bridge & doxford) so people travel outwards rather than bringing people inwards.
 
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