Future High Streets Fund

Future High Street success for Heanor with £8.59m award

Heanor has secured a major regeneration boost through the Government’s Future High Streets Fund and been awarded £8.59 million as part of an initiative to kickstart investment and redevelop the area.

The £8,592,837 award is part of £17.8 million town centre regeneration project, funded by partners to transform and adapt Heanor to deliver a sustainable future.

Amber Valley Borough Council has been working closely with town partners and stakeholders to develop the project to bring transformational change to the borough and secure a slice of the Government’s £675 million Future High Streets Fund.

The fund was established to help towns across the country respond to changes in retailing and to regenerate town centres as attractive places to live and work for the future. The council could only put forward one market town and identified Heanor as the Amber Valley location with significant need and the opportunity to make the biggest difference for its future by securing the grant.

The project will be delivered over the next three years and encompass three complimentary areas to develop facilities, generate opportunity and support jobs in the area, view the latest plan. 

• Heart of Heanor
  The central Market Place will continue to form the heart of the town centre, offering flexible space to support business, events, and public enjoyment. The redevelopment of the market square and aim to secure improved connectivity through public transport enhancement and pedestrian routes into the heart of the town linking pedestrian walkways to improve enjoyment of the area.
• Heanor Hub
  The restoration and repurposing of the site of the former Heanor Grammar School is a key aspiration of the High Streets bid. The project brings back this much-loved building for mixed-use business and community development and the provision of leisure facilities, which could include a cinema and food and beverage outlets on the site to encourage greater use of the town centre in the evenings. Car parking within the wider town centre will be enhanced.

• Heanor is Home
  The development of approximately 40 affordable town centre family homes. The council are working with partners to deliver quality homes and affordable town centre living and regenerate an area of under-utilised land. The homes are dependent on securing a developer partner and will offer greater choice and availability of residential property in the heart of the town centre, to allow residents to enjoy easy access on foot to the town and its facilities.

Amber Valley Borough Council, Heanor and Loscoe Town Council, Heanor stakeholders and developers have worked together to secure the bid to bring positive change for the town and invest in its future.

The award is part of development works to support the market towns and ensure Amber Valley residents have access to quality facilities on their doorstep. 

Latest update - May 2023

We’re around halfway through the programme timeframe and each project remains on target. The above was written before COVID-19 and before the war in Ukraine, both having an impact on how far the fund would stretch. The Science Block was removed from the scope of the Future High Streets Fund money (but other funding options are being sought). The Science Block was where design teams had earmarked leisure, food and beverage outlets. The former school has an expression of interest form where we are inviting businesses to submit details.

     

Contact the team directly on 01773 841496 or email regeneration@ambervalley.gov.uk