As well as being The Local Answer’s 10th anniversary, 2019 also marks 10 years since the opening of Gloucester Quays. The outlet centre was opened in May 2009 by television star Gok Wan. I remember the mall being packed full of people wanting to see Gok, coming at the same time as that year’s Tall Ships Festival.

The development was, of course, many years in the making – probably around 15 years according to owner Peel Group’s multi-billionaire Chairman John Whittaker. He told me his motto is “determination, persistence and patience” to see developments like this through.

Construction started in 2007 and the credit crunch hit when it was half-built. Legend has it that it was only John Whittaker’s personal intervention that made the cash available to finish the construction. The centre opened just as the economy hit recession, so it struggled a bit to start with. The centre was barely half full and the only restaurants there on day one were Pizza Express and Nandos.

Major events have been critical to attracting visitors

Peel’s approach, thankfully, wasn’t to retrench but to invest further in the scheme. New retailers were brought in through incentive packages and the relocation of the cinema from the Peel Centre to Gloucester Quays was central to creating the leisure quarter of restaurants and bars we see today.

Major events like the Food Festival and Victorian Market have also been critical to attracting visitors both locally and from further afield.

Some critics have argued that it has detracted from the historic city centre and we’ll never know the extent to which that is true, because of other factors in play like the rise of internet shopping. What is unarguable is that it attracts people to Gloucester who wouldn’t have come otherwise. And it has transformed a previously derelict and contaminated area of the city into one of its most attractive parts.

When we debated whether to grant it planning permission, the forecast was that it would attract 3 million visitors a year. It now brings in around 7 million. That is a success by any standards. Our ongoing challenge is to better link it to the city centre so that the benefits of its success are shared even more widely.