Canterbury City Council bosses have invested millions in the Riverside complex and Whitefriars - but has it been money well spent?

As new figures reveal the authority has missed out on £743,000 of potential rental income due to unfilled units at the retail and leisure complexes, KentOnline reporter James Pallant asked shoppers what they think...

Even mid-afternoon on a drizzly Tuesday, Whitefriars in Canterbury is a hive of activity with locals and tourists alike bustling about.

A giddy mother and teenage daughter congratulate themselves on a successful haul of Primark bargains, a middle-aged man slows his pace to admire watches through a jeweller’s window, while another flicks through his phone as he waits for his wife outside Zara.

A mix of famous high street staples, independent retailers and food trucks, the shopping centre draws day-trippers from all over the UK and keeps residents coming back week after week.

On holiday from Darlington, Raymond and Heather Ainsley described the complex as “well-to-do” and were blown away by the size of the space and the number of people.

“It’s a massive shopping area,” remarked Mr Ainsley, 91.

“There’s more shops shut in Darlington than open but here there are crowds of people, so it must be good.”

Popular as the city centre attraction is, the commercial space has proven a tricky asset for Canterbury City Council to manage since it took full ownership of Whitefriars in 2016.

In the past seven years, the property value of the estate has sunk from the council’s eye-watering purchase price of £154 million to less than half that today.

Lib Dem councillor Mike Sole says he disagrees with the decision made to buy the facility, but that the authority now has no choice but to try to make the investment bear fruit.

“I’ve said for a long time that I don’t think the Whitefriars investment was something we should have done,” said the council’s cabinet member for finance.

“But it is something that we have now, and we need to do our best to maintain and improve rental incomes.

“It is generating enough to just about justify keeping it, but it’s going to be many more years before the rental income pays off what we spent to buy it.”

The Marlowe Arcade is a corridor of 13 stores between St Margaret’s Street and Rose Lane, but the strip has not been fully occupied since 2019.

KentOnline spoke to Christina from Ramsgate while she was browsing boutiques along the footpath.

“There’s a really good variety of stores in Whitefriars and everything is close together,” the 24-year-old said.

“I come to shop in Canterbury about two to three times a year, mostly to buy clothes. It’s where I do my Christmas shop.”

There are currently four tenantless shops in Marlowe Arcade which previously housed mobile carrier EE, an Ecco shoe shop, men's outfitter Copperfield, and a Rush hairdresser.

In the past financial year, the empty stores cost the council £373,000 in lost rent - roughly a month’s worth of city council tax money for every Band C property in the district.

But despite this, Christina says the local authority’s move to buy Whitefriars was a good one.

“I think it’s good for the council to have some investment in local shops - otherwise everything ends up going to large corporations,” she said.

Having a council-owned shopping centre has also proved beneficial for charities, universities and artist collectives in Canterbury.

Between March 2021 and last November, one Whitefriars site has housed the alternative community food bank, The Big Drum, rent-free.

At a discounted rate in Marlowe Arcade, the council currently provides space to Canterbury Makers – a pop-up shop full of Kentish food, produce, arts and crafts.

While tenants are being sought to fill three of the empty shops, Whitefriars Centre manager Mark Stuart says they have been used to display student artwork.

“We have recently used these three units to support the Canterbury School of Visual Arts for a fantastic art exhibition,” said Mr Stuart.

“The vacancy rate has been higher in Marlowe Arcade than the rest of the Whitefriars estate.

“The smaller units there generally attract small fashion retailers who have been most affected by the pressures on the High Street.”

Despite some empty shops in Whitefriars, just 1% of the retail floor space is vacant.

Council spokesman Rob Davies says gross income for the shopping centre was in excess of that forecast for the past financial year – which, he says, “demonstrates a positive picture for the asset as a whole”.

Moreover, one of the currently unused units in the Marlowe Arcade has already been leased to Canterbury Bakery, who are working to get up and running in the space.

Lisa Carlson, CEO of non-profit Canterbury Bid, says firms in the cathedral city are faring better than most in the UK, with a local vacancy rate of 10% beating the national figure of 11%.

“We have been able to welcome 16 new businesses in 2023,” she said.

“And we can also celebrate longstanding success with some cornerstone businesses’ anniversaries this year: Canterbury Pottery (60 years), Cafe Des Amis (35 years), and Fenwick, Madame Oiseau, Refectory Kitchen, and Moat Tearoom all marking 20 years.”

About a 15-minute walk from Whitefriars, the new Riverside leisure complex has been another city amenity targeted with heavy council investment.

The £115 million development in Kingsmead – which features restaurants, a cinema, as well as flats for students and regular tenants – was due to be finished in autumn 2021.

But construction delays have repeatedly pushed the project’s timeline back.

While some of the eateries, such as Korean Cowgirl, have been serving customers since last December – and the five-screen Curzon cinema has now been open for a year – other parts of the development are still building sites.

And while work continues, the council’s balance sheet comes up over £300,000 short due to forgone rental income from “delays in completing” some units.

This includes a unit which had been set aside for Brewdog’s first Kent pub, before the craft beer giant pulled the plug on the plans in January.

Situated in a less pedestrian-friendly locale, and boasting far fewer offerings than Whitefriars, I was unsurprised to find Riverside sparsely populated with punters.

A teenager sat on a cement bench outside the cinema, waiting for a matinee showing of Oppenheimer.

“This is my first time here today", said Henry Crowther from Canterbury.

“I think it’s a nice place. I would maybe come back to visit the restaurants but it’s a bit out of the way.”

When asked if the development was worth the nine-figure price tag, the 16-year-old added: “The council could probably have spent the money on something a bit more important, but it’s not horrible.”

The Riverside’s design is made up of wooden beams, metal panels and an expansive area of uninterrupted pavement.

Some may have liked the beige and grey plaza to be brightened up with a few more trees and perhaps a colourful flower bed.

But another cinema-goer I spoke to at Riverside loved the look of the place.

“I think it’s absolutely wonderful and, well, stunning, modern and convenient,”said Hugh Boswell, 83.

“As I have a blue badge, it’s convenient for me to be able to park, come up in the lift and walk onto flat pavement.

“I think it was money extremely well-spent to build this complex – it’s always going to be more expensive to do it later.”

A council financial report, published on July 10 said the Riverside “overspend” of £314,000 is expected to be recovered in the next financial year.

When pressed, council leaders clarified that there was no way to recuperate the forgone revenue. But they do not expect to sustain the same loss in the next financial year.

“Construction delays in the Riverside project meant some units were not finished as early as predicted and haven’t been available for a full period,” explained Cllr Sole.

“We do need to get these projects finished so that we can fund the services that our residents expect of us.

“But what you’re certainly not going to see from this administration is us beginning large commercial developments that require large investments.”

Both Riverside and Whitefriars are potentially rich streams of income for the council, but the level of borrowing undertaken to finance these projects continues to be a significant expense.

Between the £154 million to buy Whitefriars in 2016 and £115 million to build Riverside a few years later, the local authority’s total long-term borrowing at last count stood at £162 million.

Between six and seven million pounds of taxpayers’ money is spent each year making payments on these loans.

“It’s foreseeable that we could pay off the debt in the next few decades, say, but you never know what could happen with interest rates and other economic factors,” said Cllr Sole.

Due to the drastic depreciation of the Whitefriars property, local leaders agree that due to this drop, selling off the shopping area is not an option.

But to make use of some of the former retail space at the complex, the council plans to move its own offices from Military Road to Whitefriars by the end of the year.