NW Town of the Year Award

Award for Blackpool’s Ambition

 Blackpool has been named ‘Town of the Year’ in a prestigious awards ceremony marking property development, building and regeneration work.

More than 600 industry professionals gathered at Manchester Central on Thusrday for the Property Week North West 2010 Awards. Thirteen categories rewarded the individuals, teams and projects that have excelled in the North West region during the past 12 months. Categories included ‘Developer of the year,’ ‘New company of the year’ and ‘Development of the year’.

Blackpool, after a long period of voting open to the public through the Property Week website, scooped the ‘Town of the Year’ award thanks to the massive steps it had taken as part of its regeneration projects.

Councillor Maxine Callow, Cabinet Member for Tourism and Regeneration at Blackpool Council, said: “The award is particularly important as it is primarily voted for by the readership of Property Week which includes property professionals, developers and investors meaning that influential people guiding investment decisions are recognising that Blackpool is a place to invest in. I am pleased that the award recognises the progress being made in Blackpool and that the significant public investment is now resulting in private sector interest.”

Doug Garrett, CEO of ReBlackpool, Blackpool’s Urban Regeneration Company, said: “It’s fantastic news that Blackpool has won the ‘Town of the Year’ award – it’s a well deserved title. Major regeneration work is well underway across the town and this award proves that all the hard work is now being recognised – and not just by residents but also the wider world. As we move forward, I would hope Blackpool will see more recognition of this work with businesses and developers investing in the town.”

Despite the tough climate Blackpool is seeing public investment to match a strong shared vision for economic growth. Over the last year £80 million has been spent on the promenade with a further £100 million to be spent on the tramway before 2012. ReBlackpool’s major projects include, continued work on The Talbot Gateway development, further work on the Hounds Hill site and the recent completion of the work on the Central Corridors – also known as Seasider’s Way. The knock on affect has been to attract a great deal of private interest in investing money to replace poor quality properties with new hotel and leisure developments along with high quality housing proposals.  A number of schemes have been submitted for planning approval and the Council is pursuing ambitious plans to bring key assets like the Tower and Winter Gardens into new ownership as a way of increasing investment in the town’s core attractions.  The developing Fylde Coast partnership is laying the foundations that will lead to exciting opportunities for new private sector development alongside the already impressive public sector led renewal.

ENDS

Note to Editors:

For more information please contact Nathan Skelton, Communications Officer on 01253 477189 or [email protected]