Big changes for 2014

Hiscox

This year sees the start of construction work on a new £19 million flagship office for Hiscox after the global insurance provider chose a move to York, bringing with it 500 jobs to the city.

Following a unanimous vote of approval from City of York Council’s planning committee at the end of 2013, work will start in April this year on the development in Hungate, which will see the creation of a glass and stone structure, designed by the same architect who created London’s Millennium Bridge, The Gherkin and City Hall.

The project is being carried out by York developers S Harrison, with Hiscox planning to move into its new office in 2015.

The £1.6 billion turnover company arrived in York in February last year when it moved 70 people into a temporary office in Mallard House, also in Hungate. When its new office is ready for occupation, Hiscox plans to have 300 new staff move in, with a further 200 jobs to be created within five years.

The investment is the largest in York since credit card insurer CPP moved into its Holgate Road premises in 1999 with 750 staff.

Steve Langan, managing director for Hiscox UK & Europe, said: “This is a significant investment for us as a business, as it will be our largest office in the UK outside of London.

“We are committed to York and to creating a building that represents a progressive and high quality addition to York’s long architectural history. “ The new office is set to come complete with a rooftop terrace and atrium, with the four levels of the building linked by a ribbonlike staircase, inspired by the City Walls.

The roof terrace, with views of the Minster, will be used by staff as well as organisations who are invited to hire it out.

Hiscox has also received planning permission for a neighbouring building which could become home to retail or leisure uses on the ground floor and a hotel or offices on the upper floors, all bringing more jobs to the area.

Alan Millard, chief operating officer of insurance firm Hiscox, who will head up the new York office, explained why the company chose to invest £19 million in the city. He said: “We wanted high quality people and we wanted it to be a good place to live, and the costs to be right as well. It wasn’t a straightforward journey for us.

“York will be our largest office in the UK with 500 people over time.

We researched which cities were best for business. When you look at what’s important York comes out really well.

“It’s going to be the highest quality office building in York, creating a totally different environment. We are trying to help York become a world-class business destination.”

The council has forecast that Hiscox’s investment could have an annual impact on York’s Gross Value Added (GVA) of £21.4 million through supply chain impacts, rising to £26.8 million GVA impact per year by 2026.

Hiscox, which is headquartered in Bermuda and London, provides insurance against international catastrophes and more steady local and regional businesses.

The firm has promised job opportunities will be available for both high-skilled and lowerskilled workers, with work being undertaken with the city’s universities to provide graduate opportunities.

Speaking about why York is such a “great place” for developments, Ann Scott, managing director of S Harrison said: “York is an attractive, expanding city with a perfect blend of history, heritage and progressive thinking.

“York is genuinely ’open for business’. It has a tremendously diverse economy – tourism, science and technology, education and service centre businesses and a strong manufacturing base.

“The business community has an inclusive cohesive feel to it – sectors successfully feed off each other.

“Officers and politicians within the council are enthusiastically pro-development, but only appropriate development, not for growth at any cost.

“The city faces the challenges you would expect of a place with such a rich history and heritage – archaeology, space, access, traffic, heritage and design – but there is a genuine spirit of cooperation between public and private sector organisations to overcome them.

“There is an extensive developer-led talent pool in the city and in the broader region, of property specialists who know and understand the community and who, together, help deliver the platform for future growth and success.”

Hungate

A decision is due over coming months on whether the next stage of the stalled Hungate development can go ahead.

Plans for the second phase of the £130 million Hungate scheme were submitted to City of York Council in September after the project had ground to a halt amid the recession.

Hungate (York) Regeneration Ltd’s application includes a five and six-storey block containing 195 homes and a commercial unit for shops, restaurants or bars. If approved by the council, the work would begin the overall 720-home project, where the first 162 apartments and houses were completed in 2009.

The entire scheme may not be finished until 2024. The second phase will consist of 99 onebedroom, 80 two-bedroom and 15 three-bedroom apartments around a central courtyard. There will be less commercial space than originally intended because of the economic downturn.

There will also be 78 car-parking spaces and 156 cycle-parking spots.

Hungate (York) Regeneration Ltd - a partnership between Lend Lease, Evans Property Group and Land Securities - has said the empty land could have a temporary use before being fully developed. Ideas include a community garden, festival and events space and as the site for a “pop-up hotel” when the Tour de France comes to York in July.

Terry’s Chocolate Factory

The first homes on the former Terry’s site are due to go on the market in the spring, almost a decade after it was announced the iconic chocolate factory was to close.

The start of 2014 saw the start of construction at the site off Campleshon Road as part of a scheme to build more than 200 homes.

York-based developers David Wilson Homes are carrying out the project after receiving planning permission at the end of 2013 for the first phase of the build at the Chocolate Works. Phase one will include 57 houses, 29 apartments and a convenience store, which will be used as a sales office while the site is being developed.

Paul Newman, managing director of David Wilson Homes, said it was no ordinary housing scheme because the site held a special place in York’s history.

He said: “We are determined to make a landmark statement which respects the heritage and reflects the architectural legacy of the former Terry’s Chocolate Works.”

The scheme been designed by London-based Richard Partington Architects, which also designed the Derwenthorpe “model village” in York.

The work by David Wilson Homes forms one half of a wider project to develop the site, which has been derelict since the works shut in 2005 with the loss of more than 300 jobs.

David Wilson Homes, which is part of the Barratts group, bought the site in conjunction with Henry Boot Developments.

The two companies purchased the 27-acre site from its previous owners, GHT Developments LLP, in April last year for an undisclosed sum.

The development by David Wilson Homes will form the South Bank end of the site, while Henry Boot Developments is taking charge of the redevelopment of the former chocolate factory buildings.

Outline planning permission has already been granted for them to become housing, offices, shops and hotels, with Henry Boot in talks with potential occupiers of the development.

Throughout the David Wilson construction period there is to be between 70 and 80 people working on the site at any one time, with numbers peaking to about 150.

The entire Chocolate Works project will create 270 homes and 200 construction jobs.

Monks Cross

York’s new £90 million shopping centre is set to open in April as work draws to an end at the Vangarde Shopping Centre at Monks Cross.

The development is set to include York’s first John Lewis store, which has brought 300 jobs to the city, a new Marks & Spencer, which will be one of the retailer’s biggest in the region, bringing 200 jobs, and a new Next store.

Developed by The Oakgate Group and Caddick Construction, the new retail park has also secured Costa Coffee, Prezzo, Nando’s, Frankie & Benny’s, Ed’s Easy Diner and York’s first Giraffe restaurant.

The development has also provided £13.75 million towards a neighbouring community stadium for York City FC and York City Knights.

York Central

Development plans dating back 50 years could finally come to fruition after plans for a £10 million bridge opened up the potential for thousands of new homes in York. City of York Council announced on the opening day of York Business Week last year that it will be investing the sum from its £28 million economic infrastructure fund to build a bridge to give access to the York Central site.

The teardrop-shaped site has been earmarked for the development of thousands of new homes, offices and leisure use, but has been slow to attract investors due to difficulties in accessing the site. Now, following a land swap between the council and Network Rail, plans for an access bridge from the former carriageworks have been revealed as “the key to unlocking the site for development”.

The York Central site is 90 per cent owned by Network Rail which has recently started a programme of site clearance as well as the development of a £36 million operating centre.

The site has been highlighted due to its transport links and brownfield status as a key opportunity for solving a need for high-quality office space in York.

British Sugar

Plans for hundreds of new homes at the former British Sugar site are due to be submitted in spring this year with work to begin in the autumn.

The development will be one of the biggest in York’s history with 1,300 homes in total. The proposals for the site are also set to feature a large supermarket, bringing more jobs.

Associated British Foods (ABF), the owners of the site off Boroughbridge Road, met with City of York Council for preplanning talks last year, and confirmed they will submit a formal planning application this spring, following “extensive community consultation”.

The factory closed in 2007, and demolition work started the following year.

The scheme for the 42 hectares of land, which also includes the old Manor School site, is expected to include as many as 1,300 family homes, a retail centre including business space, restaurants and bars, a “community hub”, which could be used as a health centre, hall or primary school, a new road through the old Manor School site, Plantation Drive and Millfield Lane, and land reserved for a tram-train halt.

The land forms part of the York Northwest corridor, a “regeneration area”

including the York Central site next to York Station.

The council has earmarked the site as being pivotal to its aim of 22,000 new homes being built in York by 2030.

London-based planning consultants Rapleys, acting for ABF, last year submitted a “scoping report” to the council, which owns the former school site.

British Sugar announced in 2006 that the factory, which had been processing sugar beet for 80 years, would close with the loss of about 100 full-time and 40 seasonal jobs, blaming changes to European Union sugar production quotas.

The factory closed in 2007 and demolition work began the following year, and city leaders say the site has “huge potential” after progress stalled for years.

York Racecourse

The first phase of one of the biggest developments in York Racecourse’s history is continuing, with the aim of completing it by the start of this year’s racing season in May.

Initial work at the northern end of the venue is seeing a new pathway and course crossing point built to improve access, alongside a new pre-parade ring, modern saddling boxes and vet treatment and wash-down areas.

The overall £10 million project will be completed in stages over several years, with most of the work being carried out between racing seasons.

The new pre-parade ring will be larger and more level than its predecessor.

Although not part of the project’s first phase and not intended to be completed by May, work on a new weighing room alongside the preparade ring has also begun.

A racecourse spokesman said the brick and timber building will be “equipped for 21st century jockeys” while reflecting the course’s history, and will boast medical and physiotherapy rooms, a changing room for women riders and a jockey’s lounge.

Future phases will see the existing Moet Pavilion replaced with a new building including a roof terrace and bar looking towards the parade ring.

The tented canopies in front of the John Carr Stand - the only Grade II*–listed building on a British racecourse and believed to be the oldest grandstand in the world – will make way for a lightweight single-span canopy, which the racecourse said would be “less intrusive”.

The whole project is expected to take until 2015 or 2016 to complete, with the work being carried out by main contractors Lindum York.

Askham Bryan

Planning approval has been granted by City of York Council for Askham Bryan College’s £34 million expansion.

The development, which will create 120 jobs and see almost 1,600 extra students based there by 2017/18, will now have to be approved by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, because it is on a green belt site.

The plans include a purpose built animal management centre and an international-standard equine centre.

The college, specialising in agriculture and land management courses, also plans to build a polo field, new teaching areas, a 300-student accommodation block and a grass roof over the campus’ quad, as well as improving its farm buildings and wildlife park.

If approved, the scheme’s first phase, costing £6 million, would see the animal management centre built with the aim of opening it in September, followed by a £9.5 million stage including the equine centre, quad roof and farm improvements.

York Potash

Sirius Minerals, the firm behind the York Potash project is continuing its work on a new planning application for a billion pound potash mine in the North York Moors National Park.

Plans had been submitted in September 2012, with a decision due in July last year, however Sirius Minerals asked for the national park’s planning authority to defer its decision, before withdrawing the plans completely at the end of last year.

Sales of potash, a plant fertiliser, are still being lined up by Sirius as it works on putting together a new planning application for the sunken headed mine, which is set to create more than 1,000 jobs.

The company has secured the sale of the site for the mine, which sits just outside Sneaton, near Whitby.

Drax

This year will see the second Drax generator convert to biomass fuel as the Selby power station reaches the half way point in its mission to convert three of its six generators by 2016.

The first converted unit has been up and running since April last year, with the second due this year, and the third in 2016.

Once converted, each of Drax’s biomass boiler units will provide enough renewable electricity to meet the needs of more than one mllion homes. By the end, Drax will be the largest renewable energy supplier in the UK, and its emissions will reduce by ten million tonnes.

Drax is part of a consortium which has won a Government contract which will be the next step towards the White Rose Project a clean coal power station with technology to capture and transport 90 per cent of its carbon to the North Sea.