Winston Economics have recently completed a review of the Worcester City Centre Masterplan delivery for Worcester City Council with inputs from DPDS Consulting. The study was commissioned during most auspicious time for local stakeholders as Worcestershire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) had started to work on the Strategic Economic Plan. Worcester City required a review of the progress of their work on City Centre regeneration, a fresh opinion regarding the economic trends within the city and nationally in order to understand how well the Masterplan was responding to the ever changing social and economic environment, and an action plan for Masterplan delivery.

 

Winston Economics carried out a detailed socio-economic analysis of social and economic conditions in Worcester City Centre and the wider city. This unique approach helped uncover trends and patterns affecting the health of Worcester City Centre allowing to provide the City Council with solid evidence for pursuing some of the longer term and highly aspirational Masterplan projects that would eventually restore the Centre’s economy and drive the rest of the city.

 

Extensive analysis of the retail sector in Worcester City Centre demonstrated its relative strengths, yet also uncovered that Worcester faced fierce competition from many large shopping centres located within 60 minutes’ drive time, and needed to focus its response on devising unique strategies for growth.

 

Consultations with key stakeholders in the City, at the county level, and the LEP helped the team to develop the Action Plan for delivery that showed how Masterplan projects would benefit the city’s economy and how much private sector funding could be leveraged if it was implemented fully. Some new and exciting opportunities had emerged in Worcester and our Action Plan articulated an early business case for these.