On a sunny summer day, driving down country lanes and through gently undulating countryside, you might be forgiven for thinking you were in the heart of Vaughan Williams’ pastoral England: an idyllic country where chaffinches sing on orchard boughs and fruit trees scatter windfalls.
But this is the countryside just outside Barnsley in northern England – heartland of discontent and high unemployment that have fuelled support for the rightwing British National Party. The tough image of the South Yorkshire former coal mining centre is heavily at odds with its landscape – a confusing combination of rural lyricism and post-industrial collapse.
In the past few years, however, the local authorities have begun to address the apparent contradiction between bucolic charm and urban grit. A development agency was formed to encourage business investment and its Remaking Barnsley plan aims to promote the locale as a “21st-century market town”, a scheme not dissimilar to that of architect Will Alsop who, in 2002, unveiled his ideas to turn it into a walled Tuscan-style hill village. Alsop’s masterplan did not come to fruition but the spirit was certainly willing.
You can see the bare bones of progress in the form of the Digital Media Centre, which opened in 2007 and is home to 72 start-up businesses and offices. The refurbished £24m Barnsley Interchange was opened in 2007 and provides a bus, rail, coach and taxi hub as well as retail units and an information centre.
The remainder of the £380m Barnsley Development Agency budget should ensure the town provides employment, culture and leisure facilities to cope with its expected growth. Included in this is the £70m Gateway Plaza scheme, a joint venture development between locally based Quest Property and Leeds-based Landmark Development Projects. On completion, the mixed-use development will comprise 188 one, two and three-bedroom apartments (due to be ready for occupancy in 2010), 96,000 sq ft of open-plan offices, a 110-room hotel and 21,000 sq ft of retail and leisure space.
“It’s the biggest thing ever to happen in the town,” says the scheme’s development manager, Matthew Stephens of Barnsley-based Brook Group “When we bought in 2001 we really felt there was a niche. Despite its occasionally negative image, Barnsley is really quite an affluent town.”
With 120 exchanged sales already, says Stephens, there has been a fair amount of overseas investment. “The hotel, restaurant and Primecare [health] Centre all add to the 24-hour environment. And the location couldn’t be better. It’s in the centre of the country, with great proximity to Leeds and Sheffield and a high quality product at a much lower price than the competition.”
And while Barnsley-born Rita Britton acknowledges that the vision of a 21st-century market town might be difficult for some to accept, she reckons it is not so crazy. “We probably have another Notting Hill on our hands,” she says simply. Britton (known as “Reet The Sweet” on the international fashion scene) has made her name as a fashion buyer and owner of a shop designer Issey Miyake has described as “one of the most beautiful in Britain”. Her store, Pollyanna, attracts customers from all over the world to Barnsley.
The Notting Hill connection is not far-fetched, Britton explains. “We have a really strong village atmosphere but we’re not a village, neither are we a sprawling city. We have a fantastic market and we have relatively cheap housing. You can go out and eat in the evenings and we have one or two small, bespoke shops. Nobody thought Notting Hill would become what it’s become at the time, did they?”
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| The small hillside village of Hoylandswaine |
And while Barnsley did go through a bad patch, the store owner admits, she feels it is improving. “It’s got itself off its knees in true Barnsley fashion. We’ve just reopened the Civic Centre, we have the Interchange and we have such a dynamic young leadership that I believe will really take the town forward.”
Houses in Hoylandswaine range from £199,950 for a two-bedroom detached bungalow to £490,000 for a four-bedroom detached house with 1.25 acres. In nearby Silkstone, another pretty village, a two-bedroom cottage can be bought for £119,950. In Barnsley town centre, estate agency Merryweathers is selling one-bedroom apartments in the architecturally impressive renovated post office for £67,950, while a three-bedroom Victorian house fetches about £260,000. According to Land Registry data, the average price of a terraced property in Barnsley is £64,809 and a detached house £147,148.
This sort of house value, combined with the investment being poured into local amenities, seems likely to create potential for significant growth in the area.
“The market in Barnsley has changed quite significantly since the national property price peaks of mid-2007,” Paul Ineson of estate agency North Star says. “Regional prices have dropped about 15 per cent, making it possible to purchase a good two-bedroom property in a good location for between £65,000 and £80,000. These properties are easily achieving rental incomes of between £375 and £450 per month, making them very attractive to buy-to-let investors and first-time buyers alike.”
Tracey Johnson, originally from Sunderland, north-east England, runs a design agency in Barnsley and bought a split-level, hillside bungalow in the village of Darfield in 2002. “We were fortunate to be buying just before the significant boom in local property prices at a time when a three-bedroom house could be bought for under £100,000,” she says.
“Living in Barnsley can be fun – there is great countryside all around, accessible local amenities and some truly lovely and amazing people. I enjoy the fact that Barnsley has so many individual areas that are self-sufficient as it gives real personality to places.” However, she says, the evening economy needs development: “The town centre needs people in it after work to create a bit of a buzz – at the moment in the 5pm-8pm period it is a ghost town.”
Johnson thinks that the investment in the town is starting to show dividends: “The Digital Media Centre and the new Interchange form an interesting architectural landscape at the main point of public transport entry into the town and the redeveloped Civic [theatre] is proving popular alongside its contemporary landscaped gardens. There is a new focus on culture and the creative industries, which should allow the town to move into new economies.”
Yet there is more to do, Johnson adds: “It’s a good place to run a business and is a good choice for creative and digital entrepreneurs but you have to be prepared for preconceptions of Barnsley to come as part of the package.”
North Star, tel: +44 (0)1226-711 470, www.northstarpads.co.uk
