Launch of Stoke-on-Trent Levelling Up Prospectus

More than £620million of potential investment opportunities across Stoke-on-Trent have been launched to investors – showcasing a bold and exciting range of opportunities for investment & redevelopment

Stoke-on-Trent City Council has today revealed its Levelling Up Prospectus – the city’s biggest investment prospectus to date – which brings together the impressive range of leisure, office, residential and industrial investment opportunities currently available in the city.

In October, Stoke-on-Trent secured £56 million in Levelling Up funding, the largest single government investment in the city since the A50 opened in the 1990s. The prospectus highlights Stoke-on-Trent’s rapid and sustained economic growth since 2015, highlighting multiple key investment and development opportunities currently available in the city. These include:

The leisure-led mixed-use Etruscan Square development, one of the largest city centre regeneration development sites in the Midlands and backed by £20 million from the Levelling Up Fund. Plans for the 7.2 acre council-owned site are expected to be submitted within weeks and include 285 residential units, a 3,600 capacity event space, 82,000 sq ft of commercial space, a 138-bedroom hotel and 701 space multi-storey car park.

The Goods Yard, another council-owned site overlooking the Trent and Mersey Canal. The city council is working with award-winning social impact developer Capital & Centric to develop the site, marking their first project outside of the North West. With £16 million secured from Levelling Up funding, plans have been submitted to create a vibrant micro-neighbourhood that’s packed full of design features to restore and bring the space alive and transform from tired industrial buildings to a lively urban quarter for people to call home and spend time.

The city’s major infrastructure projects, including the £47 million Etruria Valley Link Road, the city-wide full fibre network and emerging industries are also featured in the prospectus, along with investor and developer opportunities at Grade-II listed buildings including Hanley Town Hall and Tunstall library and pool, Spode Works and Crown Works, in Longton.

In launching the prospectus at Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, in the recently opened £5.4 million Spitfire gallery to an audience of investors, developers, business leaders and stakeholders, council leader Cllr Abi Brown said the schemes would ‘level up’ Stoke-on-Trent and unleash the area’s full economic potential.

She said: “These are incredibly exciting times for Stoke-on-Trent. Very few UK cities have demonstrated the rapid sustained economic growth as we have since 2015. This has delivered the very real confidence that can be seen right now in our small but mighty city, from developers to investors and most importantly from central government.

“We are an ambitious city, and we are looking for partners who share our vision, and are committed to driving forward regeneration that will have lasting social and economic impact. The prospectus provides a snapshot to potential investors of a range of exciting investment and development opportunities across the city, and makes it abundantly clear why Stoke-on-Trent is such a great place for them to come and get involved right now. It says loud and clear that we are open for business.”

Cllr Daniel Jellyman, cabinet member for infrastructure, regeneration and heritage, said: “There’s been a lot of talk over the years about our city’s fantastic strategic location in the heart of the country near the national road network and close to major airports, and the potential that brings with it. We’re now at the point where we are seeing this long-talked about potential being truly realised – home to one of the most successful Enterprise Zones in the country, regenerating large contaminated brownfield sites across the city and now backed by a £56 million regeneration commitment from government, to name just a few of the many schemes that are now transforming our city.

“We will use the prospectus to encourage inward investment into Stoke-on-Trent. Next month we are attending an investment event in London where we will be showcasing these opportunities to more investors and developers, and this work will be continuing now moving forward. We’re going to be approaching and having conversations with investors from not just the UK but across the globe, so the prospectus outlines all our key opportunities in one document and gives details on the various sites. It illustrates perfectly why businesses should make Stoke-on-Trent their home.”