Boscombe Bournemouth NewRiver

Ahead of their involvement in the South Coast Development Conference we’ve been speaking to NewRiver – a leading real estate investment trust who specialise in buying, managing and developing retail and leisure assets across the UK. Here’s our one-to-one chat with Director of Development Justin Thomas…

Q. You’re one of the nation’s leading Real Estate Investment Trusts, managing a £1.2bn portfolio, what do you consider as key to your success?

We would say it is clarity and consistency of strategy, and the great team NewRiver has assembled since our founding over 10 years ago now – NewRiver has hand-picked a retail portfolio that is focused on those growing sub-sectors of the UK retail and leisure market – food & grocery, discounters, health & beauty, value fashion and grab & go food.

These sectors have continued to grow because of their focus on essential, non-discretionary spend and because they are online resilient – buying a pint of milk, a tube of toothpaste or £10 pair of jeans online is unprofitable for retailers, inconvenient for consumers and bad for the environment – and that’s not going to change anytime soon. [emaillocker id=”71749″]

At the same time we have deliberately avoided those structurally challenged subsectors – department stores, mid-market fashion and casual dining – that are facing so many challenges today. In addition to this I would just say that the team at NewRiver are highly experienced and shrewd operators, capable of extracting further value from our assets, for example through development, that others don’t necessarily see.

Q. How has the Covid-19 pandemic affected the strategy taken by New River?

Covid-19 has had a significant impact, particularly given the restrictions it has placed on our tenants. We took early action to protect our financial position and insulate ourselves from the impact in the short-term, including stopping dividend payments and non-essential capex work to retain cash in the business, accessing Government support where available, and ensuring our occupiers were well supported.

The long-term impact of Covide-19 remains to be seen, but there is a broad consensus that the pandemic has accelerated trends that we were already seeing in the retail space, most notably the shift to online.

NewRiver’s strategy is focused on maximising the opportunity from these trends, by working with local authorities and private capital to transform town centres, removing large amounts of retail space and converting it to other uses. At the same time, we will continue to look for opportunities to expand the parts of our portfolio that stand to benefit, for example our portfolio of 23 retail parks which continue to be hugely popular and optimised for click & collect.

Q. You’re working on remodeling the Sovereign Shopping Centre in Bournemouth, how will this transform the experience there?

The proposed remodeling of the Sovereign Centre will actually comprise a major redevelopment as part of the wider regeneration of Boscombe town centre – a suburb of Bournemouth. The site of the shopping centre will be partly used to deliver a new public square that will be surrounded by circa 60,000sqft of retail and leisure, and a similar volume of community, health and other commercial uses. Above these ground floor uses the proposals currently show about 400 apartments.

Q. Your project will be part of the wider regeneration of Boscombe town centre, could you explain how the scheme will create a better Boscombe?

The masterplan proposals for Boscombe have been made possible by the allocation of Towns Fund money, and are intended to build on Boscombes strengths. The creative business sector is already well represented in Boscombe and there’s an abundance of cultural event space for music, arts, film and theatre such as the Royal Arcade, but to date this strength hasn’t been drawn upon as a catalyst for growth.  The Towns Fund will enable investment into the 5G network, gigabit fibre, and associated infrastructure projects, to support existing and new businesses.

Bournemouth and Poole are the UK’s top areas for high growth digital businesses supporting 15,000+ digital jobs worth over £352 million. By equipping Boscombe with infrastructure, such as business and incubator space we can encourage digital tech companies to base themselves in Boscombe.

In addition the scheme will revitalise the heart of the town centre by introducing hundreds of new homes, and realigning Centenary Way to create a direct pedestrian link to Christchurch Road across the new square.

Q. You’ve been collaborating closely with BCP Council on the scheme, how vital was this collaboration to see this project realised?

The majority of the property assets included within the Boscombe masterplan proposals are owned by either NewRiver or BCP Council, so collaboration and a strong working relationship between the two parties has been essential from the start, established by means of a collaboration agreement to set out our mutual intentions and principles for the project.

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