Event Summary
East Yorkshire Development Update: Summary and photos
Place North’s first event in Hull covered the city’s development plans and inward investment opportunities in the wider region, with key projects discussed including a £10.6m city centre grant scheme, a £80m Community Diagnostic Centre, a £42m district heat network, the benefits of the Humber Freeport, the Humber International Enterprise Park, Yorkshire Energy Park, Salt End Chemicals Park, and Siemens Mobility’s US$1bn investment in Goole.
The event was sponsored by Planit, Wykeland, and Associated British Ports.
Focus on Hull
Gillian Osgerby, interim assistant director for major projects at Hull City Council, was first to the stage, speaking about city centre regeneration plans. Osgerby outlined the city’s strong community spirit, historic charm, and friendly atmosphere and highlighted how its transformation was being shaped by this and by a suite of strategic documents – including a council plan, city vision, community and cultural strategies – all developed through extensive public consultation. These plans lay the groundwork for ambitious, long-term regeneration across the city centre and its neighbourhoods.
Major investment programmes are already underway: From 2024 to 2029, Hull will deliver a capital investment programme with priority projects including city centre grant schemes, which will revitalise almost 400,000 sq ft of vacant space, restore 18 heritage buildings, and support job creation.
Gillian Osgerby of Hull City Council
Albion Square is a centrepiece development, featuring a new £80m Community Diagnostic Centre and plans for a mixed-use site, while preserving the iconic Three Ships mural. On the River Hull’s East Bank, the city is creating an urban village in partnership with ECF, offering sustainable housing and commercial space to unlock waterfront living potential.
Environmental goals are supported by a £42m district heat network, while education and carbon neutrality are also receiving major investment. Heritage projects like the £65m Hull Maritime programme are transforming attractions such as the Maritime Museum and North End Shipyard, home to the restored Arctic Corsair deep-sea trawler.
Queen’s Gardens, Hull’s central green space, is being reimagined with biodiversity and accessibility in mind, serving as a vital link between heritage sites. Additionally, ongoing public realm upgrades, supported by national highways funding, are improving connectivity and enhancing the visitor experience across the historic dockside. Together, Osgerby said, these developments represent a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape Hull into a thriving, inclusive, and sustainable city for the future.
Next up to present was Anna Couch, urban design studio director at Planit. Couch has been developing the Hull City Centre Vision, a long-term plan commissioned by Hull City Council, alongside a multi-disciplinary team that includes Deloitte, Counter Context, Greengage, and Shed KM Architects. The vision has just been launched and aims to reimagine Hull’s city centre over the next 20 years, integrating spatial, economic, and social strategies to unlock investment, improve livability, and enhance the city’s distinct maritime identity.
At its core, the vision establishes Hull as Yorkshire’s maritime city and the UK’s green energy capital, with ambitions to become a vibrant, innovative, and inclusive place to live, work, and play. It sets out key spatial and development strategies based on deep data analysis, stakeholder engagement, and socio-economic research. It goes beyond policy boundaries to consider fringe neighbourhoods and regional context.
Couch spoke about the seven strategic drivers that underpin the vision: innovation, resilience, productivity, health, creativity, liveability, and distinctiveness. These focus areas address challenges such as climate risk, public health, housing shortages, underused land, and a limited evening economy.
The plan identifies catalyst projects, such as Albion Square, East Bank, and Colonial Place, as vital to initiating transformation, and an emerging Innovation Corridor along Ferensway is an opportunity, as well as up to 1.3m sq ft of surface car parking in the city centre as potential brownfield development land.
The vision has a clear focus on increasing city centre footfall by creating a more diverse, high-quality urban offer, especially through residential development. The city’s housing targets have doubled to 1,000 homes per year, and the plan identifies multiple development zones, including fringe areas like East Bank, Charterhouse, Colonial Place, and the Western Docks.
How to reimagine a city centre
The first panel of the day focused on the topic ‘How to reimagine a city centre’, and was made up of Dominic Gibbons, managing director of Wykeland; Rafe Gale, senior development manager, Muse; Anna Couch from Planit; and Helen O’Curry, senior consultant, Greengage Environmental.
The panel highlighted how, to regenerate a city effectively, a clear vision and collaborative approach are crucial. Gibbons underlined the need for a coalition of the public and private sectors, including developers, property companies, retailers, and cultural institutions. “Collaboration must transcend egos”, he said, with stakeholders working together toward a shared goal. Crucial to this is integrating culture and healthcare, alongside retail and residential elements, to create a dynamic and diverse city centre.
From a developer’s perspective, long-term thinking is essential. Unlike the traditional quick-turnaround model, developers must invest generationally, as seen in areas like Whitefriargate and the Fruit Market. Muse’s approach, as Gale mentioned, involves recognising that each city is unique, requiring tailored solutions based on local context. Financially, regeneration projects often face viability challenges, and funding solutions such as Homes England grants or combined authority support can help bridge gaps.
And what does Hull need going forward?
Everyone was in agreement and Greengage’s O’Curry summed it up nicely: “I think it needs better publicity. It’s amazing. It’s beautiful. People come here and they are totally surprised. And it doesn’t get the good press it deserves. I think if you can get more on communications, I think that would be really positive, because there’s already so much to talk about.”
Wider East Yorkshire’s future
While the focus in Hull at the moment is on regeneration, the rest of the county is largely looking to the future of cutting-edge technologies and development is more focused on industrial and logistical endeavours.
Becky Banks, inward investment project manager for Invest East Yorkshire, spoke about the opportunities in East Yorkshire for potential investors.
East Yorkshire’s strategic location, accessible by road, rail, and sea, makes it an ideal investment hub. The region is home to key sites along the A63/M62 corridor and the Humber Freeport, which offers significant tax incentives for businesses operating within its boundaries. These incentives include relief from business rates, stamp duty, and National Insurance contributions. The Humber Freeport, established in 2021, encompasses sites like Humber International Enterprise Park, Yorkshire Energy Park, and Salt End Chemicals Park. These areas are vital for the region’s net-zero ambitions, particularly the hydrogen production plant at Salt End.
Major developments in the area include the Melton West Business Park, which has attracted companies like Amazon. Future projects include the Metsa Tissue paper tissue mill, which plans to invest £400m and create over 400 jobs. The region also hosts the HBD development, which aims to deliver 5.6m sq ft of industrial space, potentially creating thousands of local jobs and boosting the economy.
“Over the past 30 years,” she noted, “the landscape of Goole has dramatically evolved into an industrial hub for business. It is now one of the most popular areas for investing.”
Power, land, and place
The final panel of the day featured Diana Taylor, managing director of Future Humber; David Wells, director at HBD; Finbarr Dowling, localisation director at Siemens Mobility; and Andrew Milne, lead property development manager for the Humber at Associated British Ports.
Discussing what investors look for when choosing a region, Taylor said: “When an investor approaches us they’re looking for land, they’re looking for location, they’re looking for utilities, access to markets, access to raw materials and access to a workforce. But there’s something a lot deeper than that, and that is about place identity. That’s about ambition of a region. It’s about enabling strong leadership.”
Commenting on Siemens’ commitment to the region, Dowling said: “I’ve been blessed to work here for 14 years, and I’ve overseen two big investments Siemens has made. One is the wind turbine, and one [the rail investment] in Goole. They’re very, very different businesses, and they’re very, very different investments. I think the total, along with our partners, is the thick end of a billion pounds now…
“The site in Goole was chosen from over 110 we looked at in the UK, and it was a shortlist of three. They all had land and they all had train tracks, but because we had worked here, we’d worked with the both local councils, because we could see the people, how talented they were, because we could see the pipelines, things like the Technical College, we knew the skills would be here.
“So I think for Siemens, it’s that consistency of: the skills are here, the land is here. It’s good value. We’ve got access to our markets. So all these things combined are why Siemens has chosen and continues to choose East Yorkshire. We’re just building another £60m factory as we speak. So we’re very committed for those reasons.”
Milne echoed these sentiments, highlighting how for ABP as well as the land – Humber International Enterprise Park offers up to 4.5m sq ft of industrial space – increasingly investors are considering factors beyond basic infrastructure, such as place-making and livability, to attract talent. He also highlighted how accessto power , especially renewable energy, was crucial for large-scale projects, with challenges in grid capacity being a significant concern.
A mention of the planning system drew a groan from the audience, as he noted the delays caused are often a surprise to international investors, who can struggle with the complexity and timescales. “Overcoming these challenges is essential to successfully delivering Freeport projects and competing with other national sites, ensuring long-term economic growth,” he said.
Speaking about the benefits of the East Yorkshire region, Wells said: “Viability remains a big issue, but it’s an issue everywhere. It’s not a unique issue for this region. But in terms of the benefits of the area, it’s very close to the main motorway network, and there’s an established industrial set up there.
“But I think the main game changer in this region for us is going to be the Freeport benefits and the offers that we can put to people who are perhaps a bit more footloose around the country. There is a big benefit to manufacturers being able to come to Goole – you look at what Wykeland are doing and the inward investment that they’re making on the Freeport North site: that’s hundreds of millions of pounds of investment that’s coming here, and a lot of it is off the back of the Freeport and the easy access to the port itself.
“We’re anticipating that when we start to come forward as well, that we’re going to be playing in the same park, and looking at similar benefits for people that could, for an occupier, rack up to tens of millions of tax benefits for the right occupiers over a period of time. So that’s the big thing for us.” ABP’s Milne also highlighted the Freeport benefits, and what it will mean for investment in the region.
Summarising why East Yorkshire continues to attract investment, Taylor said: “We’ve all spoken about the infrastructure and the connectivity. It’s the workforce, and the collaboration between industry and education that is particularly strong here, the collaborative partnerships. We have to be easy to do business with. We also have scale. You know, other investment sites around the UK, I hate to say it but they’re minnows in comparison. And the final one, of course, is people and place.
“I think one of the cons, really, for me, is one we’re often overlooked, which we’re hoping will change with some of the political changes coming [in the form of devolution], which does mean that we miss out on opportunities, whether it’s for funding or investment coming in. And the final one is around perception, and we’ve got a lot of work to do. I think it was Helen this morning, who spoke about place promotion… We need to invest in it, and we need to change perceptions. Because at the moment, the external perception of Hull and East Yorkshire doesn’t meet the real-life experience.”
This drew nods from all panel members and was echoed by Wells: “The perception of East Riding remains fairly low. When you when you come here, and you look, and you talk to the people, and see all the investment that’s taken place – I’m not sure that there’s enough said about it loudly enough around the country.”
Click image to launch gallery
