Mansfield District Council has unveiled its £25.75m plans to transform the town’s former Beales department store building into a new multi-agency civic hub.
The Mansfield Connect scheme was presented to strategic, community and business leaders on Mansfield Place Board.
The project forms a key part of the council’s ambitious, long term town centre regeneration plans and its £20m bid to the Government’s Levelling Up Fund (LUF).
The landmark 1930s building is set be modernised and extended to provide a new headquarters for the council and is expected to house a variety of other public, educational, enterprise and health and wellbeing services, alongside spaces for private sector investment.
Place Board members heard how Mansfield Connect would improve the co-ordination and delivery of public services, generate extra footfall in the town centre and act as a catalyst for wider development, stimulating both the day and night time economy in the town centre.
Executive Mayor Andy Abrahams said after the meeting: “If our bid to the Levelling Up Fund is successful, this scheme will offer a once-in-a-generation opportunity to develop new solutions to the challenges facing the town and district.
“Repurposing this landmark building will act as a kind of renaissance by bringing to life a new integrated space, which will then stimulate the local economy and encourage private sector investment.
“This really would be levelling up in action and it would also be a boost to the delivery of public services by consolidating them into one town centre space.”
To date, the Department for Work and Pensions, Nottinghamshire County Council, Vision West Nottinghamshire College, Nottingham Trent University, NHS health partners, and volunteering co-ordinator the CVS have all expressed interest in being involved in the new hub.
The council’s MP-backed submission to the LUF will be made before the second round deadline of 2 August 2022.
The Fund is targeted towards places with the most significant needs in terms of economic recovery, regeneration and growth and improved transport and connectivity. Mansfield has been ranked at level one out of three by the Government, putting it amongst those areas with the greatest need.
Mansfield Connect forms part of the council’s wider ambitions for the town, being drawn up in the emerging Town Centre Masterplan and aligns with broader Mansfield District Council strategies promoting Growth, Aspiration, Wellbeing and Place.
