Labour pledges to scrap new arts centre and Old River Lane development
East Herts District Council (EHC) have been trying to develop Old River Lane (ORL)/Causeway into the town’s second shopping centre for the last decade. We need to ask, is it still sensible to develop the site? Even the most successful retailers such as M&S, Next, and Waitrose, are closing stores nationally. John Timpson, the entrepreneur with a company to his name believes we only need about half the high street shops there are currently.
In 2009 EHC sold the ORL/Causeway site for development, cheaply at £2.35m to Henderson Global Investors. Henderson had £105m plans for a John Lewis store, 35 shops, a cinema, an underground car park, 100 flats and a hotel. In 2015, Henderson decided it was not commercially viable and put the site up for sale. EHC bought back an enlarged site for £19.55m. Making a £13.49m loss to the taxpayer, on the original site, and at least another £1m overpaid for the expanded site. They also bought three terraced houses on ORL for £778k each, when they were worth at most £450k. EHC’s squandering of public money in pursuit of a profit in developing ORL/Causeway has been consistent throughout and completely unchecked due it being a one-party council and the Tories being unwilling to scrutinise their party leaders’ decisions, no matter how wasteful of taxpayer funds.
The buyback losses stoked EHC’s desperation to develop the site, at almost any cost, to move the narrative on from the £13.5m+ Henderson Causeway scandal. While it solves a political embarrassment for the Tories the development is not justified by any other criteria.
To entice new developers to invest, the council have had to fund a replacement car park from public money, the £19m Northgate End multi-storey, and a £28m arts centre. The developer can specify and profit from the flats, as they want; the part of the development that will make a profit. The smart money, like Henderson, is getting out of retail. The business case for a new shopping area is not viable now, without huge public subsidy, and will be much worse in a few years time. Stortford cannot support significant numbers of new shops and ORL is too important a site to just turn into flats. If ORL was developed with the current plans it would make all town centre businesses less viable and pull trade from South Street shops northwards.
The arts centre could be developed independently but only with public money and will need support at least double the Rhodes centre's current subsidy. As the arts centre intends to compete with the Rhodes (whose subsidy the town council are refusing to guarantee) and has cinema screens competing with the Empire Cinema, it is highly likely the Rhodes and Empire would fold, so displacing rather than adding to the town’s arts offering. A Labour council will cancel the whole ORL development including the Northgate End multi-storey, as the parking problems would be more effectively solved by extra capacity at the Goods Yard, and be £19m cheaper. We will also ensure the Rhodes Centre's funding and its future.