City Living vision

Providing major residential development opportunities across Preston City Centre.

Preston is currently undergoing a dramatic transformation of its city centre with new retail and leisure facilities an expanded and improved UCLan campus, restored and enhanced public spaces and parks and upgraded infrastructure.

The City Living Strategy now presents a huge opportunity for residential developers and investors to share in the success of this transformation through the delivery of new homes to improve the existing city centre living offer, increase the amount of people living in the city centre and build on the success of City Deal.

Building on City Deal's success

Through City Deal, Preston Council, in collaboration with other public sector partners, is delivering a major package of transport and infrastructure works totalling over £430 million of public investment. This investment will leverage a further £2.3 billion of private commercial investment into new housing and employment developments.

The City Deal has delivered a massive step change in the delivery of housing in Preston, in particular in North West Preston. The increase in the scale of housing delivered in Preston has been substantial with over 2,200 new homes built over the past three years (2016/17 to 2018/19).

There is a real opportunity for residential developers to mirror this success story through the delivery of new homes within Preston City Centre and the inner suburbs. The focus is on re-developing empty buildings and bringing brownfield sites back into use.

The vision

The vision of the City Centre Living strategy is to transform Preston City Centre and its inner suburbs into a series of vibrant and popular neighbourhoods which exemplify the best of modern city living.

It sets out to create a thriving city centre apartment market, as well as delivering new high-density homes in the city's inner suburbs.

The delivery of this vision will not only boost the city's supply of new market and affordable homes but will also improve the built environment in some of the city's key regeneration areas.

The strategy will also work towards achieving one of the of key strategic priorities set in out Preston's overarching City Investment Plan in terms of developing a thriving residential offer in Preston City Centre.

Target market

Analysis of the socio-economic and residential market has identified the following target residents for city centre living:

Families and couples

Preston's compact size allows families living in the city centre and inner suburbs to easily access great schools, shops, parks and amenities.

Young professionals

The driver of city centre living across the UK, which has great potential to be harnessed in Preston due to the area's strong employment opportunities.

Retired

The city's attractive amenities including greenspace, shops, restaurants and cultural offer could prove very popular with older people should the right type of accommodation be delivered.

Students and postgraduates

Preston's educational offer continues to improve and expand. Scope exists to deliver even better quality student accommodation targeted at international students and post graduates.

Residential development opportunities

For current development opportunities associated with City Living and reasons to invest, see why invest in City Living and Development opportunities.