Opinion: Animate can be a catalyst but city has much more work to be done

Preston’s Animate with the city’s Market Hall next door and Feathers watching on Pic: Michael Porter Photography

Preston has proved it can deliver a high-value and high-profile redevelopment scheme.

Animate, the cinema and leisure complex, was civically unveiled this week after more than a decade of plans going back and forth for what had previously been the city’s Indoor Market.

Big numbers, talks of being a catalyst and of course lots of ruffled feathers from a new statue as the city continues to make hay from Nick Park being from here.

What’s crucial is this is about delivery and showing as a city when big government money is ploughed in – as it has been both locally and nationally – bricks and mortar rises beyond artist impressions.

City centres are changing. Preston does not have the large city-centre employers or working as it once did, the rise of work from home, hybrid-work patterns and out of town employment parks means becoming a leisure and administrative centre is the only viable future for Preston. But it faces intense competition to be able to do this.

At the moment it is regularly referenced as a place you have to endure going into, rather than being a place to enjoy going into.

Animate is just one reason to go into Preston. Others will also follow – the new Youth Zone, the Harris being re-opened and plenty more. I’ve written before about how last year felt like foundations being laid, while 2025 will feel like a year of openings.

There is much crowing about Animate, and rightly so, a cinema scheme on the site looked dead in the water at one stage after the previous Light cinema and restaurant scheme floundered and everyone thought the ‘T-word’ (Tithebarn) was happening all over again. But through a combination of cheque books, lobbying and more the collective enterprise of political, civic and business leaders meant Animate is off the page and now built.

It should give the city’s public, and private sectors, the confidence to do more. We’ve covered much talk of regeneration in Preston over the years – outside of apartment blocks (which in reality benefit developers and those who live in them) – this is the first substantial development for the general public to enjoy in decades. And it’s not happened quickly either, a leisure complex on the old Markets site was due to be opened in 2021. Let’s hope it also delivers for the traders in the Market Hall who have watched on at demolition, stalling and then building work next door while keeping afloat in the hope of increased footfall once Animate opens.

But it’s only partly a job done. The rest of Animate is yet to open and be fully functioning, it is very national chain heavy (which is in fairness needed in the city to lift its overall offering) but look just down the road and the Guild Hall stands forlorn save for being a small-scale venue with events being put on in its foyer.

It is likely though a successful Animate will be the key to unlocking substantial and significant funding – from whichever route that comes from – to either the Guild Hall‘s main venues being restored or another venue offering emerging from the structure if the crumbly concrete puts pay to any financial equations for restoration as opposed to demolition.

As the city hosts the Convention of the North in the coming week – with the swaggering Metro Mayors and senior government ministers in town – the opening of Animate should act as a reminder it is important cities and city-regions such as Preston and Central Lancashire must not be forgotten in an increasingly federal-type set up where major cities could easily out-jostle Preston for the funding needed to make real differences.

Crumbling transport infrastructure, abject and stubborn poverty, health inequality and young people left with nowhere to turn but drugs and crime. There is much, much, more to do for Preston to be Proud Preston again.

Subscribe: Keep in touch directly with the latest headlines from Blog Preston, join our WhatsApp channel and subscribe for our twice-a-week email newsletter. Both free and direct to your phone and inbox.