I must declare an interest from the outset. I was born in Wakefield. I have never been especially forthcoming about my birthplace, not because I am ashamed of it, but because few people know or care much about this little city. Wakefield’s points of reference, ranging from the Battle of Wakefield in 1460 to rhubarb, a maximum-security prison and Sir George Gilbert Scott’s imposing cathedral, are not sufficiently etched on the public consciousness to allow conversation to flow easily or constructively. Even our esteemed business editor had to have his arm twisted a little over lunch before he agreed to include it in this City Life series. Wakefield, if it has a reputation at all, is regarded as Leeds’s impoverished relation, where the traditional working-class Yorkshireman, with his flat cap, his unopened wallet and his whippets, moans about the bloody Tories and the price of his pint at the Arthur Scargill Arms.
That image stems from the 1980s, when Wakefield had a truly miserable time. The glass and textile industries, mainstays of the city’s economy, faded out in the 1970s and 1980s, while the decline of the coal industry began with a particular focus on Wakefield: all six pits within a two-mile radius of the centre were closed between 1979 and 1983. This dire situation was compounded by the abolition of West Yorkshire County Council, which was based in Wakefield. Many local people, who had been employed in public-sector administration ever since the establishment of the old West Riding Council, found themselves thrown on the scrapheap. There they found they were not alone. Wakefield and its satellite towns of Featherstone, Normanton, Castleford and Pontefract all became unemployment black spots. The present was bleak and the future seemed ever bleaker.
Let us fast-forward 25 years. I am standing on the windswept banks of the River Calder in the centre of the city. It’s a vile day, but the driving rain and the icy winds cannot dampen the spirits of 30 hardy souls who are there to celebrate the launch of a magnificent project on Wakefield’s waterfront, which includes the renovation of the wonderful old Grade II*-listed Calder and Hebble Navigation Warehouse and the creation of a new art gallery, the Hepworth Wakefield, named after Barbara Hepworth, Wakefield’s most famous daughter. This was a truly moving occasion because it was tangible evidence of the reinvention of Wakefield, through a regeneration that is transforming this historic city in a quite unexpectedly glamorous way.
Waterfront Wakefield is being masterminded by northern developers CTP St James, who are creating a modern mixed-use development. What is particularly encouraging is that this scheme is but one of three massive regeneration projects, worth nearly half a billion pounds, which are now on site. The £100 million regeneration of the Westgate area of the city is now underway, as is the £200 million Trinity Walk development. The former will create a new commercial and living quarter for the city, including proposals for the relocation of Westgate railway station, while the latter is a 600,000 sq ft retail scheme which will transform the retail heart of Wakefield, an area that currently resembles something out of a bad 1970s dream. Occupiers who have already signed up include Sainsbury’s, Debenhams, H&M, Next and New Look. I hope I’m not tempting providence here, but these securely funded developments, by companies with strong track records, should be as resistant to the current credit crunch as any major real estate project can be. I trust these aren’t famous last words.
It is not just the city centre that is being transformed. The old Glasshoughton coal and coke colliery, once the workplace of 2,000 miners, is now the site of a 335-acre mixed-use business park. Conceived and executed by regeneration specialists Waystone in conjunction with the regional development agency, Yorkshire Forward, and Wakefield Metropolitan District Council, it is an extraordinary success story. Glasshoughton is best known for Xscape, the second most popular paid-for tourist attraction in the country after the London Eye. Xscape opened five years ago and now employs 1,000 people; it features the world’s largest indoor real-snow slope for skiing and snowboarding, as well as a bowling alley, rock-climbing walls, a 14-screen cinema and a host of bars and restaurants. It is the brainchild of that enigmatic Frenchman P.Y. Gerbeau — and I suspect it takes pride of place on his CV, ahead of the ill-fated Millennium Dome.
The business park also boasts a new station, retail village, hotel and the Skills Xchange, part of Wakefield College, the major provider of further education in the area. Tenants on the park include logistics giant DHL and the international pharmaceuticals group Teva, and plans are well advanced to build a brand-new stadium for Castleford Tigers rugby league team there too. Initially it’s difficult to grasp the scale of what has been achieved at Glasshoughton, but a trip up to Hilda’s View, a circular walled area overlooking the park on a clear day, puts it into perspective — and takes one’s breath away. There, against the grimy backdrop of Yorkshire’s last industrial landscape — Drax, Eggborough and Ferrybridge power stations, the Castleford chemical works and the disused Prince of Wales colliery — stands one of most impressive and successful contemporary regeneration projects in the north of England. Intriguingly, though, not everyone embraces the concept of regeneration: villagers on the still impoverished outskirts of Wakefield are currently waging a battle against some innovative public art outside their homes, on the grounds that it is lowering the tone of the area.
Revisiting the city of my birth has been a sentimental journey. The old family home, originally sold to become what used to be called a lunatic asylum, now doubles up as a clubhouse for Normanton Golf Club and a conference and banqueting centre, while the family firm of solicitors, Greaves, Atter and Beaumont, has been renamed because it sounded like a Victorian undertakers. My branch of the Beaumonts may have slid quietly into obscurity, but Wakefield, recently named ‘the best small city in the UK for business’, is reinventing itself for the 21st century — and I now have every reason to be proud of my birthplace.
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