Yahoo News Business owners having to quit premises are 'nervous' over £10m Eston retail revamp plans
Tenants who will be forced to move out as a result of a near £10m revamp of Eston ’s dilapidated shopping precinct are understandably nervous about the impact on them, a council chief has said.
Redcar and Cleveland Council recently shared images showing how long awaited plans to establish new high-quality retail and leisure facilities in the town might look. This will involve the partial demolition of the precinct which will be rebuilt with new retail units.
A public consultation over the plans began earlier this month with a planning application due to follow in October. Louise Anderson, the council’s head of place development and investment, told a recent meeting that the local authority was almost at the point where heads of terms had agreed with all affected landlords and freeholders.
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They will be compensated for allowing the council to take vacant possession of their properties with any tenants then given a timeframe in which they have to move out. Ms Anderson said it was anticipated that contracts would be fully signed towards the end of the year.
She said: “Some tenants are already looking to move into other premises and we are supporting them as best we can. We are very conscious that there are tenants in these properties - it is their livelihood and business and they want to know what is going on so we are speaking to them as well.
“I was on the phone to one of them yesterday having a conversation about timing because they are really quite nervous about it [the plans] and rightly so, if I had a business there I would feel the same.”
The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) has previously spoken to local business owners in the area who have endured a number of false starts over several years with previous planned projects which failed to get off the ground. Concerns have centred on an alleged lack of communication from the council, the value of the offers being made and doubts whether the anticipated revamp would ever go ahead when commitments were being sought of them.
Some retailers have since moved on of their own accord with only a handful of outlets, including the likes of a gym, takeaway and hairdressers, remaining. Ms Anderson said: “If we didn’t think this would go ahead, we wouldn’t be going out to public consultation and it hopefully gives people an assurance that things are progressing.
“If I was a business owner and freeholder I would want that contract in place and the money in my bank and that is what we are working to do.”
The last Conservative government announced in March last year that Eston would benefit from £20m worth of Levelling Up Partnerships funding - it having missed out on past public investment - with £7.9m going towards the retail upgrade, supplemented by £2m from the Tees Valley Combined Authority’s Indigenous Growth Fund. Demolition work is due to start by the spring of next year with a view to works being completed in spring 2026.
A council cabinet report considered last year stated that it would include the acquisition and demolition of 18 freehold interests that comprise the existing Eston precinct, the development and delivery of approximately 30,000ft of new build retail and leisure schemes and about 100 car parking spaces. It referenced "transforming the local centre of Eston" and preventing the continued decline of a deprived and neglected area by attracting new retailers and diversifying the offer to shoppers and leisure users.
'Long time coming'
Eston ward councillor David Taylor asked what interest there had been in the project - an ‘anchor’ tenant in the form of a major supermarket chain having been previously sought by the council in years gone by. Ms Anderson said: “We do have businesses that have indicated and expressed an interest.
“We are boosting the area and the [local] economy with what we are doing. There are regional and national [companies] that we are targeting as well.”
Cllr Taylor told the LDRS the regeneration scheme had been a “long time coming”. He said: “The council are confident in getting it over the line and hopefully we should start to see boots on the ground and building work on the Eston precinct in the New Year. I can understand that some residents and businesses do wonder if it is finally going to get done, but I am confident that it will be completed.”
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