Hull's Biggest Regeneration Project Gets Underway
The ÂŁ25m scheme will see the city centre's streets transformed in time for 2017.
It's hoped Hull's biggest ever regeneration project can lead to more investment in the city centre.
Work to transform the streets of Hull ahead of the 2017 City of Culture celebrations got underway yesterday.
As part of the ÂŁ25m project, a new public square will be created, street fountains erected and a new stage built in Queens Gardens.
As well as helping to make Hull a world-class visitor destination, Councillor Martin Mancey hopes it'll help attract more businesses and high-quality retailers to the city. He told Viking FM:
"We have a wide range of retailers but perhaps we don't have the upper market retailers that we deserve and what we are doing in the city I hope will be a catalyst to inward investment not just from a retail perspective. We hope that in a few years time there won't be as many empty shops in areas like Whitefriargate.
"We think this investment will generate a massive change in the local economy. Something like an additional ÂŁ70m of retail spend is expected as a result of both the City of Culture and the transformation of the city centre."
Gary Taylor is from Hull City Council and said:
"From the statistics we are already attracting and the hotels are already saying that they are filling so 2017 has already started to change perceptions of the city. We want the actual perception in terms of the place quality to match. It's not even just about the year after 2017 or the year after that, it's about the future of Hull."