What news of the Phoenix Village development?
With the General Election over Raikes went in search of progress on a project with the potential to transform the centre of Gloucester and bring one of the city's many historic buildings back to life.
Dear Readers,
Welcome to Monday’s edition of The Raikes Journal.
We had a couple of stories ready to feature as today’s big read, but ended up running with a look at where Gloucester is with the proposed Phoenix Village Project.
This is the proposal to transform the former Fleece Hotel off Westgate Street and the crumbling car park to its rear into a business village - but one focused on delivering training, skills, support and hope for young people.
It’s an idea that captivated the city council enough for it to agree to work to find potential funding sources to enable it all happen, but after all the early publicity the inevitable quiet descended as as we ran up to the general election.
It’s one of a couple of high-profile projects in the council’s in-tray.
We hope you enjoy.
Have a great week.
Please send us your stories/ideas about companies/people/issues you think we should write about. Email andrew.merrell@raikesjournal.co.uk or telephone 07956 926061.
Your briefing notes…
🍺 🥇 If you are partial to a beer and haven’t tried it yet, it seems you could do a whole lot worse than Deya Brewing Company’s Steady Rolling Man. The 5.2 per cent vegan-friendly pale ale by the Cheltenham brewer has been voted number 1 in a list of best beers in the country by We Are Beer. The organisation, which stages live events to showcase beer around the country, also celebrates all things beer and it has just released what it considers to be its top 50 list. You can see the whole list right here.
🧀 If names like Brie, Camembert, Parmigiano, feta, and manchego have you salivating you probably share Futura Foods’ passion for European cheeses - a Gloucestershire firm with a £100 million turnover. This is one of our latest articles featured in our reports & Deals channel, in which we record the financial fortunes of the county’s biggest firms by turnover. In this case, turnover was stable. Profits were up. You can read our story here.
🌳 🌳 🌳 There is just one week left to apply for this brilliant oportunity with one of Gloucestershire’s much-loved charities - The Friends of Westonbirth Arboretum. It is seeking a new fundraising manager to work 35 hours a week and offering a salary in the region of £36,000 to £40,000. You can find out more here.
🏆 Randall & Payne’s quiz night at the end of last week attracted 21 teams from across the county and raised a cool £2,000 for two Teckels Animal Sanctuaries and Young Gloucestershire. The event was a joint effort by the Shurdington-based firm of accountants and Stroud and Gloucester-based WSP solicitors. Faye Hatcher, ex BBC Radio Gloucestershire now of Stroud Times, and Rob Case, from Randall & Payne, were quizmasters. The winning team was Shed 7.
Charity: Your chance to support Heart Heroes
We don’t think we’ve flagged this charity before, but even if we have - this is an oportunity it is trying to promote to businesses and we’re happy to help, giving it pride of place as our charity of the week. This is Heart Heroes, which provides social events and resources for children and families living with heart conditions. The Gloucester organisation is about to stage its first ever charity golf day on 9 August at Brickhampton Court Golf Complex and needs support. It’s looking for companies to sponsor a hole at £50 a time. As pay back your business will also receive shoutouts on social media, as well as the knowlege you have helped make the event - and the work of the charity - possible. To find out more email george@heartheroes.co.uk.
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What news of the Phoenix Village development?
It was a project that hit the headlines at the start of 2024 – a major scheme to create a special business village in the centre of Gloucester – and then silence. Until now.
We decided to ask Gloucester City Council if the proposed potentially transformative and long-awaited redevelopment was progressing any and to reflect a little on what it could all mean for Gloucester.
We are talking about the Phoenix Village Project, the innovative scheme to re-invent the former Fleece Hotel off Westgate Street and the crumbling multi-storey car park off land to the rear.
You can sense a little frustration in one of two social media posts of late by the man behind the proposed scheme, Marksteen Adamson, even though he expected nothing less than the regulation silence from the local authority through the General Election period.
The irony will not have escaped him that one of the first topics up for discussion by the new Government whose election has held things up is a reform of planning to allow such projects to move faster.
Not that plans themselves have been submitted yet, but the Fleece Hotel has been ‘ripe for redevelopment’ for the best part of a decade, this is not the first scheme proposed and still nothing.
The Phoenix Village proposal is to transform the 15th century Grade 1 Listed timber-framed former hotel and its assorted buildings into a new centre that uses businesses to help teach ‘enterprising skills’ aimed at helping young people marginalised from mainstream find routes into work.
