Western Daily Press (Saturday)
£107m city centre revamp gets go-ahead
A£107 million project to revitalise part of Gloucester city centre has been approved. Councillors hailed ‘hallelujah’ as the budget for the new Gloucester city centre digital campus was given the go ahead on Thursday night.
The Forum proposals include more than 125,000 sq ft of office space and an innovation hub designed for the emerging cyber business sector in Gloucestershire while creating around a thousand new jobs.
The building will sit alongside a 131-bedroom four star hotel, a gym, restaurants, shops, bars, a multi-storey car park and cathedral view apartments.
The plan is part of the wider King’s Quarter regeneration set to transform the tired Gloucester district.
Gloucester City councillors also approved the proposal to ask development partners Reef Group to deliver The Forum.
Gloucestershire is set to see the cyber sector grow as a new cyber business park will be built on the western edge of Cheltenham.
The new campus will be called Cyber Central, and will be a 24-hour campus dedicated to cyber tech.
Labour leader Kevin Stephens (Moreland) said: “I think I want to begin by saying hallelujah.
“As far as I can recall, and my memory on this council goes back a fair number of years, we have been talking about the regeneration of the city and the centre for the last 30 or 40 years.
“I think this is a wonderful, exciting scheme.
“It is going to be a great benefit to the city, it will breathe new life into the city centre and it will create more than 1,000 new jobs.”
The wider transformation of King’s Quarter started at the end of last year when work began on giving King’s
It will breathe new life into the city centre and it will create more than 1,000 new jobs LABOUR LEADER KEVIN STEPHENS
Square a facelift so it can become an outdoor entertainment space for performances and events.
Liberal Democrat leader Jeremy Hilton (Kingsholm and Wotton) said in the meeting: “All these large projects need all-party support because any potential investor needs to be reassured.
“Whatever happens in the local election, the project is going to continue and it is not going to be messed up by party political point scoring. I do not think that has happened one bit on this.
“There is so much more that The Forum is going to add. The innovations that are in there and the design work is excellent. This will be something we will build and construct in Gloucester, and the people in Cheltenham will be jealous as hell.”
Council leader Richard Cook (C, Kingsway) said: “It is great to know this wonderful project for the city is going ahead with all party support.
“I was fortunate earlier on today to see the works going on in Kings Square which you cannot see on the wrong side of the screens, but it is going ahead full pace.”