Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
By 2020 it could look like this
Council chiefs are optimistic that the first elements of the long-awaited Kingsmead redevelopment will be complete by the end of the decade.
The plans – which include a cinema, shops, restaurants, homes and student accommodation – represent the most significant urban renewal project in the city for two decades.
Developer Link City has produced a new impression of what the Canterbury Riverside scheme will look like when built.
It has also been carrying out work on the 23-acre site to test the condition and composition of the land on which the former Serco depot and coach park sat.
As a result of discovering boggy earth beneath, the developer will have to drive concrete piles into the ground to support the structures built above.
It has also reduced the number of student flats on the site from 700 to 550 after local concerns The former Serco depot in Kingsmead Road
about the scale of the development.
But it still wants to fulfil the other elements of the scheme which were first proposed two years ago.
Caroline Hicks, the council’s head of business and regeneration, forecasts that the first of the new buildings will be ready by 2019 or 2020.
“This is the last big development site in Canterbury,” she said.
“Link City are very keen to get on and do it as this is their flagship development and they have been working on it for years.
“Yes, these things always take longer than expected, but Link City have spent a lot of money and it’s not in their interests to walk away.”
Kingsmead has long- been regarded as one of the least attractive areas of the city and its redevelopment will mark the biggest urban transformation scheme in Canterbury since the 1990s.
It will contain a mix of restaurants and shops, although no occupants have yet been confirmed. Ninety houses are also planned.
The council says the idea for a cinema is a key component of the leisure activities the public called for during the consultation phase of the proposed development.
But the likelihood is that it will not be a gigantic multiplex such as at Bluewater, which boasts 13 screens.
A report by city council chief executive Colin Carmichael going before councillors next week states: “Over the following year the cinema market changed and the majority of operators started to shift to a business model of offering fewer screens but with a higher quality visitor experience.
“While this doesn’t move away from the spirit of the marketing brief, this has led to a change in size to a six-screen cinema which has had an impact on the design of the site, which has in turn impacted on the overall pro- gramme of development.”
Due to modifications in the proposals, the city council is likely to receive a reduced figure for the land and has drawn up a new development agreement with Link City.
It will go before the council’s policy resources committee, which meets in the Guildhall at 7pm on Wednesday, April 12.