The Renfrew Riverside area has shared history with other parts of the Clydeside: once an important piece of industrial land connecting Renfrew with the Clyde, by the 1980s it was degraded and neglected. The majority of the land area now encompassing the Renfrew Riverside was purchased by Capital Shopping Centres plc ( CSC) in the 1990s. Regeneration commenced with construction of the Braehead Shopping and Leisure Centre. The Riverside area encompasses some 113 Ha of land in total, mostly within CSC control. Joint working arrangements were put in place between CSC and the Council and in 1999 an Area Development Framework ( ADF) was completed by consultants David Lock Associates and Ian White Associates as a basis to guiding future regeneration within the area. The result of the ADF was land use allocation by the council, consistent with the proposals. The ADF then formed the basis for an Outline Planning Application in late 2000 and included a Masterplan Statement and an Environmental Assessment. This identified the land parcels for development and the particular characteristics for each site. The development proposal comprised around 2 000 new homes, a business park, region-wide leisure facilities through an expanded Braehead (Xscape), a hotel, and a park incorporating SUDS. In 2003 the application was approved. The delayed timescale was due to further technical studies which were required (flooding, contamination and archaeology, the complexity of the Section 75 agreement and issues over the key road connections which are discussed in more detail below. Upfront works have included undergrounded pylons and designing and implementing a Flood Prevention Scheme. The masterplan was adopted as Supplementary Planning Guidance and was intended as to set out design objectives and principles in order to ensure that development of each of the separate sites identified would be co-ordinated and yet distinctive. It was also important that they should be complementary to, and well-connected with, Renfrew itself in order to enable its regeneration. Design briefs were then been prepared for each development parcel to which each developer has to conform. These are prepared by the same consultants who prepared the Development Framework and the Masterplan ensuring that there has been a consistency of approach throughout. CSC retains an involvement in discussions for each site alongside the developer for each land parcel. Xscape was the part of the masterplan approved first, in the knowledge of the other work to follow. By early 2008 the first phase of the business park had been built, the park had been completed and 6 housebuilders were all active on site. 30-40% of the housing has been completed within the first 5 years. Because of all the upfront discussion and agreements in place, detailed applications which conform to the masterplan and to the design briefs have been processed quickly, generally within 2 months. |