By Simon McCabe, Chief Executive, Scarborough Group International
When people ask me what makes regeneration successful, they're often expecting me to talk about vision. Vision is important, of course, but it's only ever the starting point. The real challenge is understanding a place well enough to make good decisions over many years, because regeneration isn't something you do once. It's something you live with, learn from and continually refine.
That's one of the biggest lessons I've learnt growing up around this business and one that has shaped the way we still work today.
It's easy to look at a successful regeneration project once it's complete and assume the outcome was obvious from the beginning. In reality, that's rarely the case. The places that eventually become thriving business districts, neighbourhoods or town centres usually start with far more questions than answers. What's driving the local economy? Which sectors are growing and which are declining? Where will future jobs come from? Does the skills base support that ambition? How will infrastructure change over the next decade? Which partners share the same long-term vision, and just as importantly, what could prevent that vision from ever becoming reality?
You can find plenty of data to help answer those questions, and we use it every day. But regeneration has never been about collecting information; it's about building understanding. That only comes from spending time in a place, listening to the people who know it best and taking the time to understand how everything fits together. Local authorities, employers, universities, occupiers, investors, contractors and communities all see a place from a different perspective, and unless you bring those perspectives together, you're only ever looking at part of the picture.
Thorpe Park is probably the best example of that philosophy. Looking across the site today, it's difficult to imagine that more than thirty years ago much of it was agricultural land and the M1/A1(M) link road hadn't even been built. People often describe Kevin's decision to invest there as vision, but I think that's only half the story. Of course, he recognised the opportunity, but he also understood where Leeds was heading as a city, how improved connectivity would reshape the area, how employment patterns were changing and what bringing together the right public and private sector partners could achieve over time. The opportunity wasn't simply the land itself; it was the wider economic story unfolding around it.
That understanding didn't stop once the investment had been made. If anything, it became even more important because regeneration is never a straight line. Markets move, occupiers' requirements evolve, infrastructure comes forward, construction throws up challenges and opportunities emerge that simply weren't visible when the first masterplan was drawn. The job isn't to prove the original plan was perfect; it's to make sure the place reaches its full potential, even if that means adapting the route along the way.
That's why we've always believed our teams should be based where our projects are.
People sometimes assume that's simply about keeping a closer eye on construction, and there is certainly an element of that. Being on site means you understand quality, solve practical issues quickly and make decisions while they're still straightforward to make rather than expensive to correct. When you're delivering projects of this scale, there is no substitute for seeing progress with your own eyes, talking to contractors, understanding the realities on the ground and making sure the finished product reflects the standards you set at the beginning.
But construction is only part of the picture.
Being close to our projects, and surrounding ourselves with people who make things happen, means we're also close to everything happening around them. Our teams understand the local market because they're part of it. They hear directly from occupiers about how their businesses are changing. They know when employers are struggling to recruit, when colleges are investing in new skills, when transport improvements are changing the way people move around a city and when demand is shifting from one sector to another. Those conversations don't happen at quarterly review meetings; they happen every day, and they shape the decisions we make throughout the life of a project.
Middlewood Locks is another good example. From the outset, the ambition was never simply to develop 25 acres of former dockland. The ambition was to create a neighbourhood that reconnects part of Salford with Manchester city centre and becomes a place where people genuinely want to live, work and spend time. You don't achieve that by delivering a fixed masterplan and walking away. Each phase teaches you something about the next. You see how public spaces are used, how people move through the neighbourhood, what businesses are looking for and how the market is evolving. Those lessons influence future phases, because successful regeneration should respond to the way places actually develop rather than the way we imagined they might years earlier.
That continuous learning is probably the biggest difference between development and regeneration. Development can be about delivering a scheme. Regeneration is about understanding an economy, supporting businesses, creating jobs, building confidence and helping places evolve over decades. The buildings are important, but they're the result of getting those bigger decisions right rather than the objective in themselves.
That's what I mean when I talk about getting our boots dirty.
It's not a phrase about muddy construction sites, although anyone who spends time with our teams will know there's plenty of that too. It's about staying close enough to ask better questions, understand when something needs to change and never becoming detached from the places we're helping to shape. Technology will continue to transform our industry, giving us better data, better modelling and better ways to analyse markets than ever before, but I don't believe it will ever replace the judgement that comes from being present, building relationships and understanding a place properly.
For me, that's what regeneration has always been about. Not imposing a vision from a distance, but earning the right to shape a place by taking the time to understand it. It's an approach that has defined SGI for fifty years, and it's one that will continue to define the way we work for the next fifty.
