Sunderland City Centre

Regeneration of the city centre to ensure it fulfils its economic potential, is acknowledged as being a top priority by the city’s stakeholders. A number of strategies (including the arc’s Business Plan) and policies are already in place designed to achieve this objective. However it is recognised that city centre regeneration initiatives must be fully integrated, co-ordinated and properly phased in order to achieve maximum effect. Hence a component of the Economic Masterplan will include establishing a City Centre Strategy.

This will cover:

• Defining the economic role and potential scale of the city centre within Sunderland and the City Region.

• Assessing the centre’s retail, office, study, leisure and living potential, and their interactions.

• Establishing the shape of the city centre and the key flows within it and the locations and functions of key sites.

• A linked assessment on the role of transport in making the city centre economy more effective.

• How organisations should and could work together to drive the city centre economy.

• Developing urban design options for shaping and re-presenting the city centre as an attractive and vibrant place to work, shop, study, spend leisure time and to live.

The arc’s business plan is one of a suite of documents which will inform preparation of the City Centre Strategy. For example, the Urban Design Strategy for the Central Area of Sunderland, formally adopted as a Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) in July 2008, will also play an important part in reshaping the heart of the city.