Branch News Item

Branch: Yorkshire and North East
Date: 18 May 2007
Title: ‘The Deep’ and Hull Site Visit

The coach left Leeds station for Hull on the rainy afternoon of Friday 18th May. The weather did not dampen spirits however as 23 Women in Property members and guests alighted to The Deep to find out more about the city, its exciting regeneration plans and a tour around the sites of the City Centre Masterplan.

Citybuild’s Economic Development Director, Joanne Barnes, gave a very interesting and informative presentation at the beginning of the event. Jo illustrated the history of the Urban Regeneration Company (URC) and highlighted some of the major schemes already taking place and those in the pipeline, including The Fruit Market, St Stephen’s, Albion Street, East Bank of the River and Humber Quays.

It was then back on the coach for a mini tour of the city, just like an open-top bus experience, Nicola Plant, marketing manager of Citybuild, pointed out the areas of interest along the route to the St Stephen’s Development.

The second largest mixed-use scheme in the UK, the £200M scheme comprises state of the art transport interchange (which Mr Heath Williamson of Spencer, the contractor building Paragon station, was able to explain), new home for Hull Truck theatre and over 30,000 sq ft of prime retail, including anchor stores from Tesco and Next.

Our kind hosts for the day, Gordon Johnson and William Bird of architects, birdjohnson associates, were thrilled to be able to guide guests around their home town. We took a brief tour around the perimeter of the St Stephens scheme before heading back to The Deep.

The first major project to kick off large scale regeneration in Hull, the Deep is very special for birdjohnson as they were the architects who designed phase two, The Twilight Zone.
Quite possibly the highlight of an already exciting and informative day, the visit to the Deep, Hull’s visitor attraction jewel in the crown, presented an excellent finish.

All of the birdjohnson staff were on hand to chat to our members and guests and were genuinely delighted to escort us around this wonderful exhibit that tells the story of the world’s oceans, with lots of sharks!

We were treated to nautical nibbles in the glass observatory that displays Hull in all its glory in the golden hour.

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