2015, with the Rugby World Cup and the Tall Ships Festival, was badged as ‘Our Big Year’. I described 2017 as “the year it all starts to come together”. So what will 2018 be? It will be a year of anniversaries and a year of openings.

We celebrate the 1100th anniversary of the death of Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians and daughter of Alfred the Great, and her burial at St Oswald’s Priory (which she founded). We also mark the 375th anniversary of the Siege of Gloucester in the Civil War – arguably the city’s finest hour. It’s also 175 years since the publication of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”, which has a local connection because Jemmy Wood, known as the Gloucester Miser, is said to have been the inspiration for the character Ebeneezer Scrooge. It’s also the 100th anniversary of the creation of the RAF, since women got the vote, the first woman MP was elected and probably a lot more besides.

We will see the long-awaited opening of our new bus station and the completion of phase one of Bakers Quay (the Premier Inn hotel, Beefeater restaurant and Costa Coffee drive thru, plus the Provender apartment building). The University of Gloucestershire’s Business School at Oxstalls is due to open in September and the associated student accommodation at Blackfriars will be ready for occupation at the same time. The new Next home and fashion store at the Peel Centre should be open towards the end of the year too and I’m very hopeful that the former BHS store in Eastgate Street will be occupied, giving the city centre something to cheer about.

The landscape of the city will have changed dramatically
The housing development on the former Kwik Save site, wrapping around Northgate Street, Black Dog Way and Worcester Street, should be completed and our heritage projects – Project Pilgrim at the Cathedral, Llanthony Priory and Discover DeCrypt – will all see major progress.

When these projects are all completed, the landscape of the city will have changed dramatically, but there is still a lot to do. I hope 2018 will see us move the next generation of regeneration projects forward, particularly Kings Quarter (including Kings Square) and the former Fleece Hotel site. There will be a planning application for Kings Quarter by the summer, with work starting on demolition by the end of the year. The Council is going out to the market shortly to find a developer partner to regenerate The Fleece site following completion of de-risking works.

As well as founding St Oswalds Priory, Aethelflaed was responsible for the street layout of the city centre and much of it remains today. I hope she would approve of what we are doing to regenerate the city 1100 years on.