 |
| Shopping in Tudor style in Taunton, Somerset |
The fields of Somerset have been blooming this year with thousands of acres of new apple orchards. Increased demand in the south-west England county for local apples with old-fashioned names such as Slack ma Girdle and Pig’s Snout has been driven by the reinvention of cider as a fashionable drink, served over ice in cosmopolitan bars across the UK.
Meanwhile Taunton, the largest town in Somerset, is undergoing a transformation of its own. This modest market town is in the midst of a £1bn regeneration aimed at turning it into the commercial hub of south-west England. The ancient cattle market has already gone, relocated to junction 24 off the M5 motorway, to make way for a series of high-rise office blocks and sleek, aspirational, canal-side apartments.
The question is: will plans to raise the town’s profile and attract new business enterprises sit comfortably with the existing mien of peaceful country life? One of the charms of Taunton is the impression it gives of timelessness. Even on a busy market day it has a quiet, contented air. No cars pass along the main street, allowing shoppers to walk freely past boutiques selling handmade crafts and stalls with locally reared meats, to reach a moderate selection of retail chains including Debenhams, the town’s solitary department store.
Those who choose to relocate to Taunton often cite the slow pace of life as an important deciding factor, and the town’s inhabitants have a tendency to stay all their lives. “People who move here are attracted by the more relaxed way of living compared to places like London,” says Robbie Lowes, part of the team in charge of the regeneration scheme known as Project Taunton. “And that’s certainly not something the project intends to jeopardise.”
Instead, the developers say that plans will focus on existing brownfield sites such as Firepool – the exotically named concrete space between Taunton rail station and the town centre. Firepool, which sits alongside the river, is majority-owned by Taunton Deane Borough Council, which recently named St Modwen as its development partner. Over a 12-year period they will create more than 50,000 sq metres of office buildings on the site, which, it is hoped, will bring an additional 3,000 jobs to the area.
Nearby, a separate residential development with similar aims is under way by another local firm, Gadd Homes. Approval for 104 properties has been given, ranging from studio apartments to four-bedroom townhouses, and the first completions are planned for the end of 2010. The developers say that nearly one-third of these properties have already been sold.
The Firepool development will become the economic centre of Taunton and will be key in changing perceptions about the town as a place to live and work, according to the council. Although the scale of the plans would not necessarily make waves in more densely populated areas of the country, Paul Hughes, managing director of Gadd Homes, believes that the regeneration of Taunton will make a huge difference to the prospects of the south-west. “There is tremendous political will driving this project forward,” he says. “It means that all of the parties involved have been working together to get it completed and ensure that everything runs smoothly.”
As the development of riverside properties gets under way, work has also begun on a series of projects across the town, many along the river Tone, which runs through its centre.
Downstream from Firepool the Somerset County Cricket Club, home to the England Women’s cricket team, is planning a larger pitch to enable it to host one-day international matches. Nearby, Exeter-based landscape architects LDA Design has been commissioned to masterplan the “cultural quarter”, which includes the Brewhouse Theatre & Arts Centre. And an extensive restoration project has already begun on the medieval Taunton Castle, which has been given a £4.8m grant by the Heritage Lottery Fund.
By and large, the regeneration has had the support of residents. The planners have been careful to ensure that certain aspects of the town, such as its skyline of church towers, remain unaffected and will concentrate on opening up walkways that show off its best features. The only opposition has been some murmurs from local environment groups that would like to see more of an emphasis on energy efficiency.
On the streets of Taunton it is the plans to attract high-end retail brands and increase the town’s shopping facilities by 50 per cent that elicit the most enthusiasm.
“It is a lovely, friendly place to live but the shopping isn’t up to much,” says Lisa Barry, an events manager who has lived in Taunton for the past seven years. “There are too many discount shops and Debenhams is the only department store. We moved from London because we wanted to go somewhere quieter but we do miss the shops. At the moment we tend to drive to Exeter if we want a decent day’s shopping.”
At the foot of the Quantock and Blackdown Hills, Taunton sits on the M5, almost equidistant from Exeter to the south and Bristol to the north. The surrounding countryside contains areas of outstanding natural beauty and for those who miss being jostled by the crowds in London, the train journey to Paddington takes about an hour and three-quarters.
 |
| Ever-popular vintage housing |
House prices in Taunton are also generally less than those in Exeter or Bristol and have room to grow as the regeneration project gathers pace, according to agents. Independent estate agent Wilkie May & Tuckwood judges the average price for a typical two-bedroom Victorian terraced house in the centre of Taunton to be £145,000-£150,000 while three-bedroom properties sell for about £170,000.
The standard of education relative to the size of the town also makes Taunton an excellent place for families, according to Mike Yates at Property Vision. It is home to a number of high-performing schools, such as Castle School, listed as one of the most successful state schools in national and regional tables for more than a decade.
But unlike its closest rivals, Bristol and Exeter, the town has no university and no large private sector employers. Its largest employer is the UK Hydrographic Office, which provides the country with navigational information, but there is little else to attract and retain graduates. The local population is reliant on the public and service sectors for jobs and, as a result, salaries tend to be below the national average, although unemployment is also lower.
The town’s project developers are keen to address this weak area by creating facilities that will attract large commercial organisations and induce them to set up headquarters in Taunton. Transportation links are already good.
Figures put forward by the team in charge of the plans are impressive. Over 20 years 2,000 new homes will be built in the town centre with at least 18,000 across the whole area, along with 80,000 sq metres of employment space and 50,000 sq metres of new retail space, a new hotel, multi-storey car parks and more public spaces.
But these plans were drawn up before the term credit crunch had entered the national lexicon. The scale of the plans means that the town risks ending up with a large number of well-built, attractive but empty buildings. In November 2008 work on the canal-side office development was called to a halt as the planning team assessed the situation. However, the developers decided against scaling back, adamant that the plans were “ambitious but wholly achievable”.
It appears that their conviction has paid off. At the end of 2008 Taunton was granted a windfall of £7.9m from the government as part of its Growth Points scheme, which provides help for those local authorities with the most ambitious growth plans. The money, which will fund infrastructure work in the next two years, means that plans to make Taunton the centre of sustainable and prosperous living in the south-west remain firmly on track.
Elaine Moore is a personal finance reporter for the FT
..........
Estate agencies
Jackson-Stops, tel: +44 (0)1823325 144, www.jackson-stops.co.uk
Wilkie May and Tuckwood, tel: +44 (0)1823332 121
Developer
Gadd Homes, tel: +44 (0)1823322 022, www.gaddhomes.co.uk
