Rotherham Council may make compulsory purchase orders to make way for town centre developments

Although RMBC say they hope to work with property and land owners to purchase land needed, the cabinet agreed to use CPOs if necessary.

The areas that he council hopes to purchase have not been yet made public, but works are underway on council owned sites to bring to life the Riverside Residential Quarter on Sheffield Road.

A report to cabinet states that the remainder of the land is in private sector ownership.

Cabinet authorised the acquisition of the freehold and leasehold interests in the land and properties, and granted a resolution in principle to investigate the use of CPO powers at today’s meeting.

More than £80m in government funding has allowed RMBC to bring derelict sites back into use, including at the leisure and cultural quarter.

The report states: ” This area falls within an ambitious masterplan which will see a revived leisure economy for the town centre and builds on the direction set by cabinet in working towards a compulsory purchase order for key sites in Corporation Street.

“The area is currently home to a number of vacant, abandoned and derelict buildings which now have potential for redevelopment . However, acquisition of some properties is still necessary to bring forward this masterplan.

“Early negotiation is underway with some landowners and a route to development is being explored on a phased basis.”

This report addresses the need for the public sector intervention to “acquire land and property owned by the private sector which is required for the regeneration”

Councillor Chris Read, leader of the council, told the meeting: “Owning the asset is one of the key elements of being able to deliver it, and Rotherham Council own and continue to own very little, in terms of land in the town centre.

“We started out with the money that was banked from the sale of Tesco on the Forge Island site, and that last round of town centre regeneration.

“We’ve actually contributed very little capital funding beyond that. We have been very successful in securing external funding.

“Which puts us in a position where we’ve got this big programme to deliver that, but needing to acquire quite a substantial number of sites.”