Broadoak Asset Management

Fergus Trim

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The Broadoak Asset Management team are joining Newcastle’s delegation to MIPIM in the South of France (10th to 14th March),  working with Tier One Capital to represent Develop North PLC, the North East-based investment company listed on the main market of the London Stock Exchange.

Develop North provides investment and alternative finance solutions to developers in the North of England and Scotland, whilst simultaneously generating attractive returns for investors. The Fund has invested almost £100m into the region since 2017.  These investments have helped deliver over £250m of GDV.

Broadoak’s Fergus Trim and John Seager will both be at MIPIM and will be meeting a variety of stakeholders and investors on behalf of the fund.

Broadoak’s John Seager said ‘We are pleased to be supporting the North East delegation at MIPIM this year. The region has got some really strong projects to showcase to the Investment community at MIPIM. As part of that we are delighted to be representing Develop North and the exciting opportunity for the fund to be part of the North East’s success story.’

Fergus and John will also be hosting the Develop North sponsored closing networking reception at the Invest Newcastle pavilion at the Croisette Village on Thursday afternoon from 17:00-18:00.  See you there!

Follow the link here to hear more about MIPIM from Broadoak Director John Seager and Tier One Capital’s Ian McElroy  https://youtu.be/zjpssRIC0DY

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Broadoak are delighted to have been appointed by Tier One Capital, the Newcastle-based fund and wealth management specialist to help support the strategic growth of successful North East investment fund, Develop North PLC.

Develop North has been listed on the main market of the London Stock Exchange since 2017 and is a leading provider of property development finance in the North of England and Scotland.

Working alongside Develop North’s fund management team, Broadoak has been appointed to help expand the reach of the fund to support more residential and commercial property developments in the North East, while also supporting its plans to explore options for future additional fund raising.

The fund has already provided more than £80m in debt funding to 39 residential and commercial projects, creating significant economic growth in the region and helping to create over 3,200 jobs.

Develop North currently has a niche focus on the North of England and Scotland, offering bespoke secured loans of between £0.5 million and £5 million to credible and professional property developers across residential and commercial sectors.

Ian McElroy, Chief Executive, Tier One Capital, said, “We are delighted to appoint the team at Broadoak to work alongside our existing fund management team. John and Fergus will be a valuable addition and we expect them to make a significant contribution to the next phase in the strategic growth of Develop North.  To date we have worked with many development teams in the North of England and Scotland, to provide a gross development value of more than £160m.

“Integrating John and Fergus’s expertise with our team brings a wealth of property experience as we look to capture exciting growth opportunities in the region.”

Broadoak Director Fergus Trim said ‘We’re excited to be appointed to work alongside Tier One Capital’s existing fund management team. The Develop North fund has a great track record, and we are looking to build on that and take advantage of some big opportunities in the North East.

“Devolution and a changing investment and development landscape has created real opportunities for a trusted local fund with a focus on the North East and a depth of knowledge of the local market.  We are keen to bring our expertise to support the growing impact the fund can have on this region.”

Follow the link for a video to accompany this news    Tier One – Develop North – Broadoak v2

 

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The joy of working for a number of clients is the variety that we see and the knowledge that we ourselves gain from each project.

In 2019 we began assisting Newcastle City Council with one of their most celebrated public property ownerships. One that had endured for almost 185 years but was struggling to support itself amongst a competitive and changing retail environment – the Grainger Market.

Amongst the turmoil of lockdown but working with a wonderfully motivated and inspired team we put together the idea of a transformation plan that would broaden the appeal of the market, whilst retaining its incredibly important existing customers and make it more appropriately people centric for the audience of today.

It’s home to more than 100 businesses, including the Marks & Spencer Penny Bazaar, which has been there since 1895.

The Grainger Market first opened William IV was king, Sir Robert Peel was Prime Minister and Charles Darwin was on his way to the Galapagos to look at some finches.

What we realised was that the Grainger Market could tell us a lot about how to adapt to changing times. It’s an institution, and it has been a vital part of daily life since 1835 – and you don’t achieve that without knowing how to ride out a few storms.

The world is an unimaginably different place today, but the market remains at the heart of the city’s retail and social offer, continually responding to what customers want from it, recognising how it has to change to align with their daily lives.

The core proposition is the same – it’s a place where people can get daily essentials, visiting a butcher, a baker and a fruit and veg stall.  But around that core offer, the identity of the market has evolved. Now, it’s a place where people can visit all manner of sellers – clothes, collectables, gifts, a jeweler, even an opticians.  You can also pick up lunch on the go or stop for a meal – sit and enjoy different environments within a bustling market.

Inherently, the existence of the market – a place where you can buy affordable produce, meet friends, just a few minutes from where your office might be, continues to be so important to attract everyone back to the city again.

The initial vision was put forward as part of the Levelling Up Funding and was successful in securing a substantial grant towards adapting and preserving this important asset. What we hadn’t had the opportunity of doing at that stage was truly engaging with the traders about their aspirations. Something we quickly managed to put right by a detailed and open process.

I’ve had the pleasure to get to know many of the traders through our work, and what’s incredible is the variety.  Some are people just starting their business and their spot in Grainger Market might be their first business location outside of their house.

Others might be third or fourth generation holders of the same stall, despite that continuity of service, they’re adaptable because they know their customers better than anyone else and they know what they want. They also have the scale and flexibility to react quickly to what is selling and what isn’t – to change their business model to suit changing times – it’s something the rest of us can learn from.

The last few years have been defined by rapid change in people’s habits – not least how much more time we spend working away from the office and outside of city centres.

What we know now is, when people come to the office, it’s not because it’s where they work, it’s because they have a reason to be there. Some of that will be defined by team catch-ups and collaborative working, but some of it will be defined by the space itself and the outside environment – and that’s where Grainger Market and our city centres can become the real stars.

The great news is that our original vision has now evolved to delivery and the contractors are on site now implementing the changes which will be completed during 2025. We’ve been inherently involved in leading the initial multi discipline design team, the engagement and co design process, the long term business planning and communications about the project

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Broadoak have been named as a project partner of the Wilson Project, a major 4-year pan European research and development project.

WILSON will develop and demonstrate a number of new prop-tech solutions in large-scale pilots across four different European countries.  Newcastle Helix has been selected as the pilot for the UK, and Broadoak are working with Newcastle University to deliver the project. Overall, the project aims to upgrade 200,000 m2 of buildings and reduce maintenance costs by up to 35%.

Key objectives include improving building operations, evaluating environmental impact, and enhancing building diagnosis and monitoring. Personalized Data Hubs (PDHs) will connect and integrate all WILSON solutions, adhering to International Data Space (IDS) principles. These solutions will be complemented by an Investment Tool to support decision-making on renovation and RES investments.

Broadoak Director Fergus Trim said ‘WILSON is a great project to bring to Newcastle.  It will develop nine innovations that focus on data management, property management, environmental performance, and building diagnostics. These innovations will then translate into practical applications such as tools for predictive maintenance, biodiversity assessment, risk and resilience analysis, and smart readiness indicators. It is good news that Newcastle will be at the forefront of the development of this new property technology’

The EU-funded WILSON project aims to enhance data management in the built environment through a decentralised, interoperable data mesh architecture, integrating advanced data analytics and digital twin technologies to improve building management systems (BMS).

In the long-term, WILSON seeks to ensure Europe’s global competitiveness, data sovereignty, and achievement of European energy and environmental goals by 2050, resulting in a highly energy-efficient and decarbonized building stock.

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Broadoak Director John Seager shares his thoughts…

It was an absolute pleasure to meet Legal and General’s new Group CEO António Simões last week at Newcastle Helix and showcase some of the fantastic things that are being achieved here. The breadth of his experience and immediate understanding about our purpose and vision was great to see. It really highlighted the importance of building connections and partnership that match aspirations for investment, the kind that is ready to go on a journey and help achieve a long-term vision for the region.

To kick off the day Legal & General announced the launch of a new £1 million fund to help improve health equity in the North East, aimed at supporting community-based projects that tackle societal issues. This followed the recent announcement of the North East region’s first Local Growth Plan under the leadership of Mayor Kim McGuinness. L&G’s Social Impact and Investment Director, Pete Gladwell and Head of Social Impact Investment Julia Goldsworthy shared insights into the number of expressions of interests they had already received. Meetings and tours of Newcastle Helix followed this announcement including many of those involved in Newcastle Helix including Jane Robinson, Ben Rodgers, and Michelle Percy FRICS.

There was very obviously plenty of discussion about attracting investment to the region and, more importantly, the right kind of investment that has impact. The “we’re open for business” tag line for the region should not ignore the need to ensure that we have a minimum set of expectations from all investors that is appropriate to achieving our ambitions around inclusivity and sustainability.

This is certainly the case when it comes to regeneration, placemaking and investment, anyway. In those cases, if you want to do something transformational, you’ll have to approach everything a bit differently. And that’s why it’s so great to have an investor like Legal and General as part of the Newcastle Helix partnership

Not everyone thinks like that. Traditional thinking works on the basis that there is a broad sense of where the best development opportunities are in a particular area. The temptation, or typical thought, is to attract any investment by using what’s already going on around there – “you’ll be well-connected, you’ll be near other development, you’ll have access to X, Y or Z, there are other similar things that have been successful”

What you’re trying to do with that is sort of tell the story of a place, but it’s inherently backward looking. It can work well where you’re trying to build on past success, adding a few more building blocks on top of your tower, but if you’re trying to do something transformative, then it’s not enough.

It’s also not enough to put together your proposition and then court any investor who shows an interest – sometimes you need the right investor for the right project.

That means doing your prep work first.

I’ve done lots of that over the years with the many projects I’ve been involved with, and I think there are three fundamental elements to it.

1. You need to get the right people in place – the right partners – often spanning multiple sectors.

2. You need to know what your mission is and make sure it’s one which works for everyone.

3. You need to get the story right and tell it in a way which attracts the kind of attention, and the kind of investment, you want.

The success of Newcastle Helix has come as a result of getting all of those elements right.

The engagement team we have put together with Charlie Charlton, Chris Taylor and Natalie Eminae live and breath our vision and in Legal & General , Newcastle University and Newcastle City Council we have a set of partners who are all focused on the long term, and all bought into the mission of the site.

It’s an easy mission to grasp too – an innovation district where we address some of the biggest challenges facing the city and the region, while being a thriving business community and a commercial success too.

People can sometimes dismiss big, external investment as inevitably resulting in people at cross-purposes – they’ve got their goals, you’ve got yours.

But if you can articulate the mission, and tell the story right, then the success comes from everyone pulling in the same direction.

The reality is that if you have a grand vision, you’ll often need the heavy lifting to come from elsewhere – you simply won’t be able to achieve as much alone as you’d be able to with outside support.

The sweet spot is when you have a locally-defined vision, being delivered by local providers, and benefiting local people, while also helping an investor meet their goals.

That needs effective management.

I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have been involved in a host of roles over my career where that’s gone really well.

I spent over 12 years at Gateshead based UK Land Estates, working with a motivated and trusted team as part of a public private partnership, delivering all sorts of developments from award winning business parks to refurbishing older industrial properties and everything in between. Because of our long term investment, the relationships that we built up with every single occupier were meaningful and relevant, we celebrated their business successes and were also there to assist through more difficult times if necessary.

I took these learnings into my role as CEO of Siglion, the Sunderland public private regeneration company, getting development started at the former Vaux Brewery site, where others had failed for more than 2 decades of stalemate. We also transformed a massively underperforming publicly owned commercial property portfolio into robust and profit producing assets that still provide a great revenue stream to the local authority.

You can see the same process at Newcastle Helix, which continues to hugely benefit from local intelligence and old hands delivering efficiently and effectively on a combined long term vision.

Each project has been very different, with different characteristics and desired outcomes. What they all had in common was that planning had started early to prepare for investment, we defined a clear shared vision, and that the process was managed in a hands-on way, not just through the development phase but into the lifecycle of the site too.

Good asset and partnership management seeks out connections and ways to add value, and it comes with an in-depth knowledge and understanding of the place it’s working in, coupled with a clear view of how any given asset sits within the future vision for that place.

As it stands, the North East is a fairly leaky region when it comes to investment, with just 43.4% of the investment which enters the country via the region staying in the region.

The bulk of that onward investment is into other parts of the UK – 95.2% in fact – suggesting we’re an attractive entry point, but we’re not doing the best job selling the region and making investment sticky.

We’ve got to do better at that in the North East, and projects like Newcastle Helix are at the centre of being able to achieve that. It’s a place that has done its prep work, got its story straight and is matched to the right kind of investment by understanding what the shared vision is at an early stage, and not forgetting that. If we want to achieve long term goals we have to focus on the right kind of long term partnerships.

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Broadoak Director John Seager shares his thoughts…

Unless you enjoy a particularly dry kind of holiday, it’s unlikely that when you visit a new place you’ll be struck by its commercial property sector.

Naturally as I’m walking around a city I’ll notice where new development is happening, or how busy its economic centre feels, but the thing which tells you about a place is its cultural offer. These are the places that engage and draw you in, they’re the places that matter.

In the opening pages of his book ‘This Must Be The Place: How Music Can Make Your City Better’, the author Shain Shapiro talks about how cities like Austin and Nashville decided to sell themselves to the world as ‘music cities’.

It’s true that both of those cities have long, rich histories with the music industry, but the initial conditions there weren’t necessarily any different to anywhere else – what they did was take it seriously and embed it in broader policymaking.

You could substitute out music for any cultural or creative industries as these are the things which give places their identities, make them somewhere worth living and worth investing in.

Images of buildings and areas with potential for regeneration
Examples of regeneration opportunity areas, Newcastle UK

Newcastle University and The RSA (The royal society for arts, manufactures and commerce) published research last year that underpins the investment case. It shows that creative industries are growing at 1.5x the rate of the wider economy, contributing £108 billion in GVA annually. And employment in these industries has grown at 5x the rate of the rest of the economy since 2011. Given those significant figures, it’s difficult to understand why the investment world is still treating the creative industries so tentatively.

Something I’m passionate about is understanding how investment in real estate can be truly impactful. So that the investment is used to deliver not just income return for investors, but actually help solve wider societal challenges.

When you broaden your aims out to include things like wellbeing, social value, inclusivity, job security or job creation as well as pure income, you get a much more exciting proposition, and you can start to think about the way assets are really being used.

Publicly owned land and buildings are a good place to start this, as their common ownership naturally takes in the “doing good” thought space. Local authorities often own multiple properties across their patches – everything from homes, to old schools, to leisure centres, libraries and offices. Many of those already serve important roles as civic and community hubs, but there’s also huge untapped potential in these assets.

By focusing investment and the use of existing assets, it’s possible for local authorities to create thriving communities of creative and cultural practitioners with spaces which suit their needs and encourage them to work together.

Creative Central Newcastle is the city’s emerging creative and cultural zone, centred around Clayton Street and extending across much of the city centre. It is a prime example of a combined approach of putting culture and community building at the heart of urban regeneration.

The sad fact is that many property owners have a narrow myopic approach to property ownership – get a tenant in and take the return with little or no thought to future value or heritage preservation. There’s very little aptitude within the investors or their advisors to look outside of that field to see where added values might lie – hence the continued existence of vacant or under used spaces and deteriorating buildings. And yet there are many creative and cultural organisations who could make fantastic, income producing use of these spaces.

I’ve been fortunate to work directly with various organisations in the creative sector. What’s particularly interesting is that, in working with these organisations, I’ve learnt so much about different approaches to tackling problems. They are used to spinning many plates to make their visions become reality. And their scope of vision tends to be much wider reaching.

Take New Writing North – who support the development of writing talent across the North, and have done for nearly 30 years. They are aiming to create a world-first Centre for Writing and Publishing in Newcastle. It has broad aims, including content creation across writing for books, film, TV and digital, enhancing people’s skills and employment prospects, tackling loneliness, bringing communities together, and shining a light on talent from the region so that Newcastle takes its place nationally as a centre of excellence for writing.

As an organisation that has grown their work and influence through working in partnership with others across a broad spectrum of industry, they are very focussed on drawing partners to their vision through strong storytelling. Being able to tell a story about what the centre will enable and change, has been fundamental to getting the region behind it as an idea. It’s underpinned by a sustainable business model that will also add value to the surrounding area.

I’ve also had the pleasure of working with Boho Arts as they explore how to create a new inclusive creative arts venue in Newcastle. They’ve relied on crowdfunding, grants and the generosity of specialists to get the ball rolling, but there’s huge potential for the space they’ve identified in a former wholesalers in the centre of the city.

What is so obvious is that both venues, once delivered, will bring so much to the city in terms of vitality and social economic value, they will be transformative for the areas around them, and yet we’ve had to work incredibly hard to unlock finances to make progress.

That shouldn’t be the case, and the argument for action is clear. The difficulty is that it requires huge collaboration and innovative thinking around how that investment can be funded, particularly how we can attract large scale private sector investment, to become a reality.

The search for funding shouldn’t come with the immediate thought of the need for philanthropy or cultural grants, Andy Haldane, CEO of The RSA, has been talking recently about creating Urban Wealth Funds. Something like that, delivered correctly for the North East could be a huge opportunity to unlock the potential of the region whilst also creating an investment fund that delivers financial and social returns for its citizens.

The RSA recently published a report on Northern England’s creative industries, which found the sector accounts for 3% of GVA in the North, compared to 10% in London and the South East.

Growing the sector’s contribution to just half that of London would result in a boost of £10 billion to the North’s economy annually.

It’s an internationally focused industry too, but one which is under-utilised.

In the North East, we have around 3% of total UK Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), but just 1% of creative industry FDI.

Unlocking that potential will require us to do what Shain Shapiro talks about and consider “how music impacts building codes, zoning, education, climate action or citywide strategic planning, recruiting and retaining talent and workers, the granting of planning permission or tourism and marketing plans”.

These are all areas that, as property and place professionals, we should be the experts in. And we need to take it upon ourselves to be at the forefront, spotting the chance to achieve multiple aims whenever we can, and making sure we use our understanding of the stakeholders and places we work in to bring the right people together and unlock the potential.

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Broadoak have recently completed two exciting projects on the Strawberry Place site for Newcastle United FC.  Broadoak acted for the previous owners Reditum in selling the site to the football club and were retained by the new owners to act on their behalf helping to bring the land back into use as two temporary uses until a permanent use for the site is brought forward.

The first of these was the Stack fan zone, a major new outdoor leisure venue offering 6 bars and 10 street food offers.  The second was a new club shop to be used while the stadium shop is refurbished as part of the new partnership with Adidas.

The Broadoak team helped co-ordinate the planning consent, liaising with various stakeholders and then tendering and managing various works on site.

Broadoak Director Fergus Trim said ‘Strawberry Place is a landmark site in Newcastle.  We were delighted to be retained by Newcastle United Football Club to help them deliver both these fantastic schemes and bring the site back into use for the fans ahead of the start of the new season.’

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Broadoak Director John Seager shares his thoughts…

The city of Newcastle is layered on top of itself.
Its history is there to see.
Sometimes you’ll turn a corner and there it is, peeking out between more modern buildings, and sometimes it still takes pride of place.

It’s a tribute to the city that the built icons of Newcastle can be both so old you count their age in millennia – as with the sections of Hadrian’s Wall still hidden amongst the city – and so young you can count on your hand the years they’ve been around.

I’m very lucky to have an office on the Newcastle Helix site, one of the younger icons of the city.

It’s one of the key projects I’m assisting with on behalf of the Newcastle Helix partnership of Newcastle University, Legal and General and Newcastle City Council, to look after the estate and help it thrive.

From the corner of the site you can see Newcastle’s medieval walls while standing next to a piece of the Scottish and Newcastle Breweries building which once occupied the land, complete with famous blue star.

The Helix buildings themselves are each visually striking.

There’s The Core – with its living wall – and the honeycomb-look of The Catalyst, or the burnt copper framework of The Lumen.

They look like a merging of ideas, nature and industry and they’re occupied by organisations who are merging ideas and bridging divides too – between research and business, between public and private sector.

The 24-acre site was conceived as an innovation district where all the different engines of progress can sit next to each other.

There are university buildings, offices inhabited by all sizes of business – both locally grown and international – and there are community and event spaces for everyone to meet in.

Helix’s stated mission is to help us all live better lives, and it’s a natural home for three National Innovation Centres – one for Data, another for Ageing and the final one for Rural Enterprise.

Very soon, the site will also actually be home for hundreds of people, creating energy-efficient, low carbon modern homes for residents of the city – putting the better lives mission into practice.

Like all projects that look to do things differently, Helix is a place for experimentation – we host several urban innovation projects and research taking place here has begun to have global benefits.

We can see the economic and social benefits happening already – job concentration on the site is up 40%, commercial space concentration and commercial rents are both up, and we’ve seen overall economic activity and general health improve in the catchment around the site too.

Helix is very much part of the city, both in those outputs and in its physical location, with one edge against Newcastle University Business School, St James’ Park and looking down towards Central Station.

But at the site’s other edge is Arthur’s Hill.

It is one of the most diverse parts of the city, with nearly 40% of the population born outside the UK.

But it is also one of the most deprived parts of the city, and in 2019, it was ranked amongst the 10% most deprived neighbourhoods in the country.

It’s important for Helix to face effectively in both directions. It must be welcoming, and draw the city in, acting as a fully inclusive place that attracts talent, inspires and creates opportunity for anyone from the region through the education, research or career opportunities here.

A selection of photographs from Newcastle Helix – Buildings, Events, and Site
Photographs from Newcastle Helix

The ultimate outcome must be a place where there is a thriving ecosystem of opportunity.

It should be a place where the public sector and large institutional investors enable academic research, commercialisation of ideas, and the development of skills and talent.

It should acknowledge the past, embrace the present and define the future, all in one place, in one innovation district.

Achieving that means careful and continued engagement and building of the community on the site, and a different approach to asset management – one that the Helix team have plenty of experience in.

It’s not enough to fill all the space and make sure income is generated, because there’s a need to build connections too, and ensure the whole is greater than the sum of the parts and the bigger mission is being served too.

We see our role as much as an enabler of that mission as fulfilling the traditional roles of an asset manager in making sure spaces are fit for purpose and tenants are happy.

Our local knowledge means we can see where Newcastle Helix sits within the future narrative of the region, and we can see where others can feed into it.

The community engagement work on the site tells the stories emanating from there – the research stories, the business stories and the people stories. We’ve drafted in the huge expertise of journalist Charlie Charlton and film maker Chris Taylor into unearthing those stories, inviting others to write and share their own tales. In the past 10 months we’ve hosted events with over 1000 people on site – each event aimed at attracting a broad audience to engage in discussions about important topics from climate change to finding a work-life balance as a parent.

We’ve also hosted more than 50 different tours from regional/national and international study tours to diplomatic visits. Attendees might be coming here to find out what’s happening in the region, or to be exposed to new thinking, or they might be schools and their pupils discovering the career opportunities on their very doorstep.

The feedback and engagement from our events, films and socials has been overwhelming. The important thing is that those conversations have continued to foster collaborations on and off-site.

Our LinkedIn posts alone have engaged with an international audience of more than a quarter of a million people – and counting. To achieve this level of visibility, discussion and feedback within the sector is inspiring. When you get to that sort of scale the level of collaborative innovation is inexhaustible and it really makes me feel that we can achieve anything that we focus all that resource on.

The lesson is that buildings alone are not always enough – when they come with a purpose, and when they gather community around them, they can create a thriving place.

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Broadoak Asset Management has successfully acquired Stockbridge House on Newcastle’s Quayside on behalf of a client.

The 174,506sq ft property comprises a mix of uses including a 500-space car park, offices and a ground floor restaurant. The building occupies a prominent location in the Quayside area of Newcastle, with access from both Pandon and City Road, adjacent to a remaining section of the ancient city walls. 

That area of the Quayside is already busy and will see a further dramatic increase in visitor numbers when the new Sage convention centre opens its doors

The site was acquired in an off market transaction for an undisclosed sum from London based Praxis Capital who had recently acquired the building together with the adjacent One Trinity Garden from Abrdn.

Fergus Trim, Director at Broadoak says: ‘We were delighted to identify and then acquire this prominent mixed use asset as an off market opportunity. We have identified real opportunities for asset enhancement within the business plan for Stockbridge House, to be implemented over the next few years.’ 

 

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Broadoak Asset Management has advised Northumberland County Council on the acquisition of the Keel Row Shopping Centre and adjoining properties in Blyth with a major new development planned for the site including new education, innovation and leisure facilities.

The Keel Row comprises some 58,000 square feet and a 300 space car park. However, like many UK retail outlets, it has been struggling for several years and is no longer commercially viable. The shopping centre remains open until a planned closure in 2024.

The site comprises approximately 3.6 acres and will be brought back into positive use as part of the £90m Energising Blyth regeneration programme to grow, renew and connect the town. The programme is being delivered by Northumberland County Council and funded in partnership through UK Government, Northumberland County Council, North of Tyne Combined Authority and support from other partners.

Councillor Wojciech Ploszaj, cabinet member for Supporting Business and Opportunities, at Northumberland County Council, said: “The acquisition means we can bring forward more development in the town centre including investment in educational, innovation and cultural activities. This will make the town a more welcoming, safe and popular place to visit attracting a wide range of people wanting to work, learn and enjoy all the town has to offer.”

Northumberland County Council acquired the Keel Row from Northumberland Estates. Michael O’Driscoll, commercial property investment director at Northumberland Estates said: “We have owned Keel Row Shopping Centre and car park for several years and despite additional investment into the site and ongoing efforts to market retail units within the centre, there has been a sustained decline in tenancies.”

Jonathan Sykes, Director at Broadoak Asset Management who has worked on the project for some 18 months said: “This was a complicated transaction simultaneously acquiring these adjoining properties and working with the tenants to ensure that the council will be able to secure vacant possession as part of the wider site assembly. We have also sought to encourage retailers to remain in the town centre which together with the proposed redevelopment will help secure the future of Blyth.”