The landscape of Stockton has changed significantly in the past year and is set to transform even further.

From further plans for the town centre’s Waterfront project to proposals for a care and health zone and the upcoming extension to Preston Park, 2023 has not been short of major announcements. In the next 12 months, we can expect to see the proposals taking shape further and being debated, revised and realised.

Stockton Waterfront

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Plans for the urban park with amphitheatre and oval lawn, performance space, pavilions, bridge over the A1305, road changes and “cultural ribbon” telling the heritage stories of Stockton were approved in July with councillors praising them as “out of this world”. Ground was broken in December as more details were revealed of large-scale play areas, a land bridge and extension to the Millennium footbridge, and work started on the “transformational public space” with £20m investment from the Tees Valley Combined Authority, £16.5m from the government’s Future High Streets Fund and £5m of the council’s capital.

At the same time, plans to knock down Splash and replace it with a £15m leisure hub and library could change as the council says it is “taking stock” of regeneration proposals and “scoping things out” as new opportunities and possible investment emerge. There are also potential proposals for using The Shambles and town hall, “the historic crown jewels of the High Street”.

And proposals are to be drawn up for Municipal Buildings as council staff move from their offices there to Dunedin House on the Thornaby bank of the Tees. Council leaders have raised the possibility of using the building for homes for young professionals as part of town centre “aspirational living” and a “growing powerhouse”.

Diagnostic centre

The Northern Echo: A picture of what the proposed NHS community diagnostics centre in Stockton might look like

A “key anchor” in the waterfront master plan is the forthcoming Tees Valley Diagnostic Centre. As the former Swallow Hotel came down early in the year, followed by the demolition of the Castlegate Shopping Centre and multi-storey car park, the site was cleared for the High Street facility which will offer rapid scans, tests and checks for issues including cancer, heart and lung disease.

Aiming to take preventative action to help patients rather than relying on hospitals, functions will include MRI scans, CT scans, ultrasound scans, cardiology, x-rays, blood tests and respiratory checks, helping to catch issues more quickly. It was said to bring 130 new jobs by 2026 to 2027 and take up to 86 patients per hour with 70 members of staff there at a time, delivering 150,000 tests a year in cardiology, pathology, radiology, respiratory and sleep services, with one clinical lead saying of the project: “It’s an opportunity to put diagnostics on the footing that it should have been on for many years.”

It has not been without its controversy, with arguments between the council’s Labour leadership and Conservative politicians over the expected completion of the project as it was handed over to two NHS health trusts. Neil Atkinson, North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust’s managing director told a board meeting it would probably open around the summer of 2024.

Layout and designs have been agreed for the centre, currently under construction, and clinical chiefs and staff teams have been working on how it will operate. And it has led to something bigger…

Care and health zone

A proposed “care and health innovation zone” for the 110-hectare Teesside Business Park and Tees Marshalling Yards site, with the chance of bringing 9,000 jobs and an annual £470m into the local fruition. Council chief executive Mike Greene looked on it as the key to tackling several issues at once – regeneration, health, skills, investment, poverty, town footfall – while restoring the region to its former glory of “the world followed where Teesside led” in training, research, business and innovation.

Leaders now see the diagnostic centre as a starting point, with the goal to create a new cluster attracting people to “world-class clinical facilities” and growing businesses. “There’s an opportunity not just to create jobs but quality residential areas as well,” said Cllr Nigel Cooke.

“There’s nothing really like this in the North-east. There’s a real opportunity here for us to be at the centre of creating something special for that sector.”

Meanwhile, the North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust is working on a new hospital outline business case, to be completed in February, focusing on getting ready for funding opportunities. Having been knocked back on an £80m bid for a new hospital in May, to politicians’ dismay, the trust needs a plan as the hospital buildings – some residential and office blocks of which were found to contain RAAC – have just eight years’ useful life left in them.

It is producing plans on a “ready to bid basis”, said its managing director Neil Atkinson, so that it can seize opportunities for funding when pots of money become available. The business case was expected to be complete around the end of February 2024.

Preston Park

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Plans were unveiled for a multi-million-pound expansion and “radical transformation” of the Preston Park Museum into a leading national attraction, aiming to bring top exhibitions to the area. It will include a two-storey extension with a large exhibition space – said to be the biggest on Teesside – a visible store showcasing more of the museum’s collection, along with a car park doubled in size, upgraded entrance, extended café and better toilet and changing facilities in a revamp funded with £12.4m from the government’s Levelling Up Fund, plus £237,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Plans for the first phase – the glazed two-level extension and extra 98 car parking spaces – were approved in November, albeit with councillors expressing reservations, saying residents did not want to be “handed a fait accompli”, arguing the toilets, full car park extension, café and children’s play area needed to be sorted out as a priority, and warning against “defacing the setting of our last architectural jewel”.

There has been controversy over the possibility of parking charges at Preston Park, which had been included in proposals for savings in February. The council since said no charges were proposed until 2025.

Levelling up for Billingham and other town centre masterplans

The year started with bitter disappointment for Billingham as its ambitious plans lost out on government levelling up funding for a second time. “It stinks,” raged Labour MP Alex Cunningham. The town’s regeneration sparked debate in council meetings with Conservatives saying the Labour-led council had been “sitting on” millions of pounds while the Labour regeneration chief said they were “grasping at political straws”, each side accusing the other of doing nothing.

However, in November, it was announced by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt that Billingham would receive £20m from the Levelling Up Fund’s third round after the government recognised the high quality of the council’s bid. Politicians universally welcomed the news, with the Conservatives saying it showed the government “putting money where its mouth is” while Labour said the Tories had “finally seen sense”. It did not stop them arguing over who deserved credit for the cash boost, however, with one councillor calling his opponents’ claims “bulls**t” in one of the year’s spicier rows.

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A sports hub is proposed for the former Billingham Campus site, with £4m of TCVA funding going into the project and hopes to complete it in 2025. “Regeneration blueprints” are to come for all six town centres in Stockton borough, with work on designing a new swimming pool at the site of Phoenix House in Thornaby and plans to move NETA to Stockton Riverside College.

Railway bicentenary celebrations

The first exhibition at the new museum extension will be part of a nine-month festival and “major international event”, S&DR200, to celebrate the bicentenary of the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 2025. More details are expected to come about the exhibitions, installations and attractions to mark the journey of the first steam train from Shildon to Stockton.

A replica of Locomotion No. 1 on the 26-mile journey is one of the “large-scale, dramatic, moving, dynamic, theatrical performances and events” being planned, as well as conferences and seminars with international speakers, and links to events in Stockton, Darlington and Durham.