DEVELOPMENT & PLACE

Street (student accommodation) and Kilvey Hill (leisure space, including a cable car, luge and zip wires). In total, around £300m of development, led by the council, is planned to go ahead. You mentioned broadening the city’s retail and leisure offer – why is that important to you? Since the 1980s most retail investment has been in out-of-town retail parks, and we want to bring shoppers back into the city centre. The focus is improving the quality of retailers, rather than the quantity. One of our key objectives is to increase dwell times in the city centre and we believe offering shoppers a broader range of leisure options (for example, more casual dining) will really help us to achieve that. The new indoor arena sounds exciting – what is the thinking behind that? We believe that it will act as a catalyst to deliver economic, cultural and social benefits for the city. We want to improve the city’s amenities for local residents, while also attracting visitors from the wider region and further afield. With this increased footfall, we hope to firmly establish Swansea as a destination in its own right. Swansea Council is leading an innovative programme to improve the city’s central urban fabric and infrastructure. HuwMowbray , the local authority’s Property Development Manager, explains why the council has rolled its sleeves up in a way unmatched by many of its peers, talks about how the city plans to broaden its retail and leisure offer and tells us why London is his favourite city outside Wales. How do you describe the Swansea’s regeneration ambitions, especially to people who aren’t familiar with the city? The council’s major goals are to improve the variety and depth of attractions Swansea provides, increase the number of people living in the city centre, bring back skilled jobs through the creation of a tech-based CBD and broaden the retail and leisure offer. And how are those goals likely to be achieved? We have a number of significant projects that are either underway or about to start, including Kingsway (public realm and road improvements) and Digital Square (Phase 1 of Swansea Central, which includes a 3,500 spectator-capacity arena, a hotel, car parking, ancillary retail and a new feature bridge across Oystermouth Road). With presumably more projects being planned? Yes, the development pipeline for the next decade looks really exciting, with schemes such as the Digital Village (employment space for tech businesses), Swansea Central Phase 2 (mixed-use development), Castle Square (leisure space together with public realm improvements), Mariner HuwMowbray Property Development Manager, Swansea Council INTERVIEW DESTINATION DELIVERER Above: Swansea Central digital arena 26 27 CUSHMAN & WAKEFIELD DEVELOPMENT & PLACE