Renewed hope for £150m city centre regeneration

The developer is set to submit plans for the regeneration of Peterborough city centre "within weeks"

Plans for a £150m transformation of a city area are to be submitted by a developer for a third time.

Hawksworth Securities want to develop the North Westgate area of Peterborough.

Chairman Peter Breach told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire he was "excited" that a new application would be submitted “within weeks” to Peterborough City Council.

He said proposals included a new hotel, student accommodation, offices and apartments, with ground floor space allocated for pubs, restaurants and shops.

The site extends from Bourges Boulevard across to Lincoln Road, and from Bright Street on the north side to Westgate at the south.

A new planning application for the £150m North Westgate regeneration project is due to be submitted within the next few weeks

The developer’s first application in 2003 - which focussed on more retail spaces, including a cinema - was rejected and a second was submitted in 2015 and approved in 2018. But it lapsed three years later.

The developer said a great deal of work has gone on in the background over the years as he described it as a “complicated scheme.”

Following consultations and analysis, the development plans have been altered to provide more accommodation instead of retail spaces.

"The demand is very much there for it (accommodation),” Mr Breach said.

“We started planning this a decade ago, with our first planning application in 2003.

“There is nothing more difficult to do than a city centre regeneration and we are working hard in the background to put something forward to the city council very soon".

Mr Breach said the firm had assembled a “good group of consultants” including environment specialists and architects backing the project.

Plans will be submitted by the developer for a third time