• High Street and St. Thomas. The work of HSHAZ and its cultural consortium over the next four years will bring new focus to this area, its properties and shared and public realm. Network Ryde (147 High Street) already provides a locus of public investment at the south end, and the plans to buy back the Town Hall provide another at the north end.
SOCIAL ENTERPRISE ZONES
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Central Esplanade. The Arena, Pavilion, Skatepark, Harbour and Quay Road car park together create a dominant social enterprise zone on the seafront. The Esplanade, predominantly in public ownership, suffers from stagnation under very long leaseholds with little coherent, shared regeneration direction. The central zone offers a unique opportunity for a social enterprise approach to renewal with RTC and IWC working together to secure the economic opportunities of the five assets as one project, setting a new and optimistic precedent for the rest of the seafront including the interchange which also has its redundant and underused spaces, and integrating the protection of the site’s essential natural and cultural capital and the inviolability of free, permanent public access. 98
