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Urban Regeneration
Worcester Shrub Hill Quarter
With transformed national connectivity, inspiring heritage and high quality spaces, Shrub Hill will evolve as a vibrant new neighbourhood for Worcester.
It will be a home in the city for new, high quality employment and enterprise, and a desirable and inclusive place to live and spend time.
Supporting the wider investment and growth aspirations for Worcester and Worcestershire, Shrub Hill will become established as an exemplar for successful and inspiring urban renewal and investment.
Worcester’s Vision fuses all the aspects of the historic, current, and future Shrub Hill ‘place’ together.
It establishes a set of long-term strategic, economic and spatial ambitions which are shared by partners and which can be mobilised immediately.
Key facts
- The Shrub Hill area of Worcester is one of the County’s largest and most important regeneration and investment opportunities: a 14 hectare site in the heart of the city which has potential to accommodate 80,000 sqm (GEA) employment space and 42,500 SQM (GEA) space for new homes.
- Located on the edge of Worcester City Centre and home to a mainline station offering national connections, Shrub Hill is a truly strategic gateway location.
- Future rail investment is planned and will bring the area even closer to London, Oxford, Birmingham, Bristol and the South West.
- Investment and development will support the evolution of the area as a vibrant new mixed-use district for Worcester – accommodating jobs, homes and community uses. The aspiration is to establish Shrub Hill as an exemplar for successful and inspiring urban renewal and investment.
- Economic growth and evolution forms an important part of the vision, with an aspiration to build a larger, more diverse and more productive economy for Worcester City Centre. Over the coming years, economic transition will be underpinned by the provision of an ecosystem of new high-quality workspaces: suited to the needs of larger businesses looking for new spaces, and the needs of smaller firms looking to start-up or scale.
- Delivery momentum is strong. The recent acquisition of the Shrub Hill Industrial Estate by Worcestershire County Council means that a large part of the area is in public sector control providing assurance and certainty over the long-term regeneration programme.
- More than £10m of central government funding has also been secured to enable initial phases of delivery – including significant improvements to the public realm through the area, and the delivery of the first new phases of residential and commercial development.
Opportunity location
Why invest in Worcestershire?
Worcestershire is situated in one of the fast growing areas of the UK and is now a magnet for key sectors such as advanced manufacturing, aerospace, cyber and next generation tech, life sciences and agri tech. Worcestershire is also home to Worcestershire 5G NexGWorx- previously a Government 5g Testbed and now providing ‘Testbed as a service’ to businesses looking to trial 5G to improve productivity.
Worcestershire is home to a highly skilled workforce. The typical 45 minute commute area for Worcester includes a rich talent pool of people from Birmingham in the north, Warwick in the east and south to Gloucester. The workforce has a high proportion of people working in high-tech manufacturing – four times the regional average and twice the national figure. With its own university it is also within easy reach of 20 other top quality universities. The county has been recognised as one of the top places in the UK for business start-ups. Worcestershire also benefits from a wide selection of high quality offices and units, along with intermediate and large development sites.
Insight for investors
- Type of investment sought: Developer, Occupier, Capital Investor
- Value: £570m GDV
- Site size: 14 hectare
- Timescale: Initial phase- 2025, and then ongoing until 2040
- Planning status: Pre-planning
