Grosvenor pulled out of the £700m Preston Tithebarn development today saying they want to focus on smaller developments. Lend Lease the other developer say they are staying in. It had seemed Grosvenor were the major developer but on looking at the Land Lease website they have involvement in a lot of large projects worldwide.
The project has been on the boards for a long time, is very ambitious, faces opposition from everyone not in Preston, is subject to a planning inquiry and there are attempts to list the main building to be knocked down. Maybe this is standard fare in such developments and developers just keep chipping away and re-structuring their portfolios, but to the uninitiated it sounds like a story of continuous obstacles. Grosvenor have spent quite a bit of money already buying up properties and in the planning process so there is a risk of making a loss on work to date and you might have thought that their commitment would have assured their continuation.
I’ve never been fully pro or anti-Tithebarn and my opinion changes as I read different articles. There is no doubt that Preston is a strange design overall and Tithebarn isn’t going to help. Other factors such as; will a new high speed line go through Preston or round it or maybe not go this far north, will Preston be a stop for High Speed Trains, should the bus station and railway station be closer and link better to the motorway. Why is the shopping area going to be split between the railway station end of Fishergate and the Tithebarn area. The bus station is one of Preston’s most commented buildings and it is to be knocked down. Tithebarn doesn’t seem to help these. On the plus side probably from the council’s view if someone is willing to put in money all these issues are the lesser of the evils of running down and unemployment.