Posted on January 22, 2021

AspinallVerdi played a major role in securing almost £60m to transform town centres by advising on successful bids from four local authority clients to the Government's Future High Streets Fund (FHSF).

Consultants at the national practice provided strategic advice and expertise to support the bids from Tamworth Borough Council, Northumberland County Council, Amber Valley Borough Council and Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council.

The FHSF was launched by the Government to renew and reshape town centres and high streets by providing co-funding to overcome challenges in areas by driving growth, improving experience and ensuring sustainability.

Headquartered in Leeds and with offices in London, Liverpool and Birmingham, AspinallVerdi worked alongside partner organisations and council teams to deliver successful FHSF bids from:

 Tamworth Borough Council - AspinallVerdi secured £21.65m - one of the largest amounts awarded by the Government via the FHSF - for the Council by leading a multi-disciplinary team to prepare a business case and masterplan to support its bid to encourage new development and investment in Tamworth town centre, while capitalising on current regeneration schemes and identifying new opportunities capable of delivering transformational change at the heart of Tamworth.

Northumberland County Council - As part of a multi-disciplinary team, managing director Ben Aspinall and colleagues achieved more than £11.121m in funding by developing the Council’s FHSF application and wider town investment plan for Blyth town centre. Ben provided commercial input and property market research/soft market testing of the Council’s portfolio of developments, alongside preparing existing use valuations and residual appraisals to calculate the rise in land value.

Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council - supporting separate bids from the Council for Elland town centre and Halifax town centre, Ben and his team secured conditional offers of more than £6.3m and more than £11.7m respectively from the FHSF.

On Elland town centre, the AspinallVerdi consultants provided expertise including development appraisals of four council-owned projects for new-build residential developments on high street gap sites, while for Halifax, Ben and colleagues provided commentary on the local property market, the wider impact of regeneration proposals on town centre property values and land values in the wider FHSF area and a town centre rise in land value appraisals.

Amber Valley Borough Council - working closely with a professional team and colleagues from the Council, AspinallVerdi assisted with projects to transform Heanor town centre and also played a key role in the financial modelling and preparation of the business case.

Ben Aspinall, managing director of AspinallVerdi, said: “It’s incredibly rewarding to see the hard and collaborative work of AspinallVerdi, our consultant partners, great local authority teams and passionate communities pay off by achieving successful bids for almost £60m from the Government's Future High Streets Fund. Our skills in research, analysis and financial modelling feeding into successful business cases has contributed to this success.

 “As a specialist property regeneration practice, we are passionate about achieving sustainable economic development of our towns and cities, so this funding is great news for these town centres as they look to redefine themselves to meet the needs of a post-pandemic world.”

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