Are plans for the Golden Valley Development still on track?
It’s been championed this week at the CyberUK conference by Minister Pat McFadden and by Anne Keast-Butler, director of GCHQ. Which makes our questions about the Golden Valley rather timely.
Dear readers,
Welcome to Friday’s edition of The Raikes Journal.
We were a little nervous about publishing this one about the Golden Valley Development. For such a positive project, the question 'Will the Golden Valley still go ahead?' sounds so negative.
But if you don’t ask the questions and rely only on the marketing, doubt has a way of creeping in, and eating away at even the most steely narrative.
You can blame the media and anyone else you want when that happens, but there’s not much of the media left to blame, really.
And besides, the media’s job is to hold local government to account. And the Golden Valley is Cheltenham Borough Council’s and it’s invested £130 million of taxpayers money to date - plus more public funds in the form of £20 million of levelling up cash.
Regular readers will now know that Monday’s full edition is always free, Thursday’s single story is sometimes paywalled and the main read on Fridays usually. All of which helps pay for what we do - real journalism about Gloucestershire.
It doesn’t mean you can’t read most of our paywalled editions, it’s just that the main story - always an original piece of journalism - will be partly locked, unless you are one of our paid-for supporters.
Best regards,
Andrew Merrell (editor).
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Your briefing notes...
📈 £10m investment in Gloucestershire is shaping a “modern industrial identity” for the UK. This was yesterday’s story. We asked those in the know in aerospace what a £10 million investment in the county from one of the sector’s biggest names really means. The response heaped praise on the business and on the county and you can read it here, if you’ve missed it.
📈 12,600-home blueprint should be withdrawn, say inspectors. This is the ongoing saga of the row over Stroud District Council's local plan, which sets out future strategic development and details the levels and types of growth planned for the area until 2040. Inspectors asked it to withdraw their local plan amid concerns over the need to upgrade junctions 12 and 14 to accommodate the expected growth. It emphasises just how important the upgrading of the county's motorway junctions are to our economic success. Read more.
📈 University to develop cybersecurity with major new business partnership. The University of Gloucestershire has successfully secured a £275,000 Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) to advance innovation and drive meaningful improvements in cyber security. The university, which has started decribing itself as “a centre of excellence for cyber and computing” will collaborate with wholesale retailer Unielectronics Ltd to research, design and develop an integrated smart cyber-security hub for efficient and effective cybersecurity management and threat detection. Read more.
Expert insight: The ever-changing business landscape, if only we had a sat nav!
The business landscape continually changes, keeping even the most experienced of us on our toes. With so many internal and external factors, it can be difficult to prioritise. Tim Watkins, the managing partner of Gloucestershire-headquartered accountants Randall & Payne, lays down his latest thoughts on what kind of business strategy you should adopt to remain successful in what he acknowledges are changing times. We’ve run the blog on our Expert Insight channel, but you can read the full article on the Randall & Payne site right here.
Gloucester reveals England’s biggest and best example of a timber-framed town house
Slowly, slowly Gloucester continues to reveal some of the architectural and historical gems hidden within its precincts, and the latest is quite simply stunning. Those who champion the city, and that now includes many at Historic England who funded the latest work, and the growing number of converts thanks to events like the Gloucester History Festival, hope it will bring more visitors to its streets. This is the story of the repairs to the Grade-I listed 26 Westgate in Gloucester, aided by a £314,163 grant from Historic England. The timber-framed merchant’s house dates back to the late 16th century, and is the largest surviving historic timber-framed townhouse in the country. You can visit for free, as it is now the city’s thriving antiques centre. The work was done by DA Cook (Builders) Ltd. Read more.
Diary Dates for the weekend…
Today
📽️ If you like sailing, or are charmed by good cinema exploring those among us determined to live a little differently, Wind Tide & Oar could be the film for you. At The Roses Theatre, Tewkesbury, tonight and Saturday, 10 May.
🎭 Sir Michael Morpurgo’s In the mouth of the wolf, is brought to life on stage at The Barn Theatre, Cirencester, tonight from 7.30pm, tomorrow at 2.30pm and 7.30pm.
Saturday
🏉 Gloucester Rugby play Harlequins away at 5.30pm.
🎉🥳 Gloucester’s community is invited to step back in time as King’s Square transforms into a nostalgic celebration of the 80th anniversary of VE Day. From 1pm to 4pm. Read more.
🎭🎶 Dear Evan Hansen is a muscial with a score by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (Oscar-winning composers for The Greatest Showman), book by Steven Levenson and more awards than can be listed here, according to Cheltenham's Everyman Theatre. Today at 2pm and 7.30pm.
🛍️ Stroud’s award-winning Farmers’ Market takes place every Saturday 9am-2pm with over 50 stalls per week 90 different producers
Sunday
🏎️🚗🚘 Gloucester Docks will host a dedicated Italian Automoto Festival with up to 200 Italian cars on display from 10am to 4pm.
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Are plans for the Golden Valley Development still on track?
It’s been championed this week at the CyberUk conference by Minister Pat McFadden and by Anne Keast-Butler, director of GCHQ. Which makes our questions about whether the Golden Valley rather timely.
By Andrew Merrell.
With devolution afoot for Gloucestershire we could see the end of Cheltenham Borough Council, the organisation leading the Golden Valley Development, and then there’s all the turmoil created by decisions in America.
It does beg the question, are the plans still on track for the much-trumpeted ‘once in a lifetime’ scheme - a major urban expansion project that will transform a 200-hectare beside GCHQ into “a multi-purpose, hi-tech garden community”?
That was the thrust of what we wanted to put to the team behind the project – a partnership made up of the borough council and its lead contractor, HBD.
Those watching closely will have already felt the narrative for the “£1 billion development” change in the last 18 months – with the tech park at the centre of the project shifting from being all about cyber to being about a business park with a tech element.
Success for the Golden Valley also depends on the M5 junctions. Extra lanes have already been added to the roads approaching Arle Court Roundabout already, increasing the capacity at Junction 11.
Plans for a new M5 junction appear to be progressing too, with a £229 million upgrade already given the initial go-ahead by planning inspectors. There are a few hurdles yet to go clear.
Much of the county’s economic development plans rest on the redevelopment of its motorway junctions.
This week Stroud District Council was urged again to withdraw its local plan after four years in the making because inspectors were unclear where the £240 million-plus would come from to upgrade junctions 12 and 14 to accommodate the expected growth.
But back to the Golden Valley Development.
This week, Minister Pat McFadden was on Radio 4 championing cyber and at CyberUK 2025 in Manchester, the UK government’s flagship cyber security event hosted by the National Cyber Security Centre, he was bigging up the Golden Valley Development by name.
The Golden Valley team was there too.
“We’re already making some big investments, like the billion pounds going into the new state of the art Golden Valley campus near GCHQ’s Cheltenham office,” said McFadden, his speech filmed and that soundbite posted out on social media.
“That site alone is expected to create 12,000 jobs and be home to hospitality, retail businesses, 3700 new homes. It is all growth.”
Apart from it’s not yet, is it?
Last year Raikes was writing how phase one of the scheme - 160,000 sq ft of office and event space - would begin in early 2025 with doors opening in 2026, not least because someone is already in line to move in! And American business.
According to a BBC report in late April work could now begin by October, if Cheltenham Borough Council approves two key applications, which will include feedback from public consultations.
McFadden is right about one thing, it’s difficult to resist the figures associated with a project that once underway is expected to take 10 to 15 years to complete, provide thousands of jobs and supercharge a hugely significant sector.
But shovels are not yet in the ground. Which brings us to our questions.
Ed Hutchinson, managing director of HBD, was good enough to sit down with Raikes to discuss.
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