By David Jones, surveyor, Hutchings and Thomas Chartered Surveyors, Newport

 

DELEGATES went away imbued with a renewed sense of purpose and a multitude of ideas for the city after the inaugural Newport City Summit staged in the University of South Wales city centre campus earlier this year.

The keenest of movers and shakers had packed the lecture theatre to get the low down on what was about to happen in the city and also what was planned.

It’s fair to say that after the initial buzz and enthusiasm for all things Newport the fizz went a little, shall we say, flat.

However, there is a second instalment of the City Summit and it’s coming our way at the end of the week.

This event is sponsored by the Celtic Manor Resort, where it is to be staged. It has been arranged by Newport City Council and the reNewport Task Force.

Items up for discussion include an Update on City Centre Regeneration; the progress on ReNewport Recommendations; the Newport Economic Network: Progress and Next Steps; a report on the Nato Summit Effect and a Preview of Investment Conference post-NATO (Nov 20-21) as well as Newport and the South East Wales City Region

The preview bumph says that the half-day summit will give attendees the opportunity to put questions to the expert panel and then discuss their opinions.

Now, it’s not as if nothing has happened in the city since the last summit. Far from it.

The Friars Walk development is emerging from the ground like some architectural volcanic eruption and Admiral have their feet well and truly under the table at their sparkling new headquarters.

The entirety of Norwich House, a total of 8,038 sq ft, the significant single letting to which I eluded last column, has been taken on a five-year lease by Network Rail and ABC Electrification Ltd, owned by Alston, Babcock and Costain, as the nerve centre for the electrification of the South Wales railway line project.

One of the largest lettings in a decade, it will see more than 100 new, highly-skilled jobs brought to the prominent office block, the former Newport Unlimited headquarters, in Gold Tops, right in the centre of Newport’s professional district.

Hutchings and Thomas have ourselves recently moved into new offices at The Estates Office, Lord Tredegar’s former estates office, which is directly opposite Norwich House on the corner of Gold Tops and Pentonville.

However, surely the most significant development over recent months was the long-awaited issue of the Newport edition of Monopoly. I am now seriously considering commissioning the excellent Claire Broome, of Parade Design, based here in The Estates Office, to create a Hutchings & Thomas sticker to be accurately placed over one of the property squares on the Newport Monopoly board but which one? What a sensational idea for a corporate Christmas gift that could turn out to be, eh?

Up the ‘Port