St Stephen's Shopping Centre
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Property overview
St Stephen's in Kingston-upon-Hull opened in 2007. The £200 million scheme formed a major part of the masterplan to regenerate Kingston-upon-Hull city centre, transforming a semi-derelict 40-acre site. This year, it won a RICS International Regeneration Award. It is now home to 43 shops and brings 1,300 jobs to the area at peak times. It is managed by an on-site team, with Munroe K acting as managing agents.
- Our use of resources
We currently recycle 60% of all managed waste. This includes aluminium, batteries, clothing, cardboard, fluorescent tubes, glass, paper, plastic packaging, scrap metal and wooden pallets. Over the last year, this has diverted over 250 tonnes of waste from landfill and cut waste management costs for retailers by 20%. In a joint initiative with Kingston-upon-Hull City Council, we also provide recycling stations for shoppers in the Tesco car park. This is the first public recycling station in the city centre and offers facilities for shoppers to recycle glass, paper, aluminium cans and plastic bottles. We also provide bins with separate compartments within the Centre for shoppers.
Rainwater from the large roof area is harvested and re-used to flush the public toilets, saving 6.2 million litres of mains water use each year. This also mitigates flood risk by reducing the amount of water flowing down the drains during peak rains. This is something that is of particular interest to local people following severe flooding in the region in 2007. Water saving devices, including sensors and filters, further improve water efficiency.
The team installed motion sensors in back of house areas so that lights are only switched on when they are needed. Energy efficient features that were incorporated in the design of St Stephen's include a naturally ventilated and lit main street which needs less artificial lighting. The heating system in the management suite also redirects heated air from one room to another, re-using it rather than expelling it.
Over 50% of people use green methods of transport to travel to St Stephen's. The Centre is adjacent to a £20 million Grade II listed public transport interchange used by 24,000 people each day. There are also cycle spaces located at a number of the Centre entrances and the team promotes the benefits of using public transport, cycling or walking.
In May, over 1,000 shoppers pledged to make good environmental choices following a two-week sustainability event at St Stephen's. They committed to saving over 700 tonnes of carbon emissions by switching to green power, lowering their thermostats and using public transport more. This is equivalent to over 67,000 return train journeys from London to Paris. They also promised to save 435 trees each year by recycling paper regularly and enough energy to power a computer for over 15,000 hours by recycling glass regularly.
We thank our shoppers for the pledges that they have made to help the environment. By installing water saving devices they will cut water use by over 770,000 litres, enough to run over 30,000 dishwasher cycles. By installing energy efficient light bulbs they will reduce energy use by nearly 81,000 kWh, enough to run over 400 fridges for a year. Thank you!
- Our communities and us
17 unemployed young people completed the Prince's Trust Get into Customer Services course at St Stephen's. This has helped them to prepare for the world of work, improve their sense of self worth and contribute to their community. 13 of the learners have gone on to positive outcomes, including full-time employment or education. The course was held on-site and included placements with major retailers such as M&S. Learners also achieved qualifications in health and safety and customer service, and benefited from six months of follow up support by The Prince's Trust. This follows the success of the Get Into Retail course run at St Stephen's in 2007, the first to take place in a city centre shopping centre. St Stephen's achievement was recognised with a Carnegie Award for Partnership Innovation.
St Stephen's is working in partnership with local schools, retailers and Kingston-upon-Hull City Council on the Make £5 Blossom scheme. In February 2009, 270 primary schoolchildren were given £5 each and encouraged to think of enterprising ways to make a profit. St Stephen's provided the funding for nine schools to run the project and recruited retailers to act as mentors. Centre Manager, David Laycock, said: "We are absolutely delighted to be involved in the Make £5 Blossom project. This breakthrough scheme will have a great impact on inspiring children in our city and improving the business and enterprise skills of the next generation." The children will celebrate their success with their mentors at a VIP event at the end of the project.
This is a fantastic opportunity for Kingston-upon-Hull businesses to work together to give our children the opportunity to develop business and enterprise skills that will help them to build successful futures.
In July, St Stephen's opened Kingston-upon-Hull's first Changing Places toilet, equipped to cater for more severely disabled people. It provides specialist facilities and extra space for up to two carers. Jeanne Carlin, whose daughter Erica has multiple impairments, has campaigned over a number of years for this type of facility. She said: "There are still not many cities across the country with this type of facility so Hull has something to be proud of. Now my daughter will be able to enjoy taking part in city life without her carers having to worry about returning home in a rush if she needs to go to the toilet."
This new facility will make a huge difference to the social lives of many disabled people and their families when visiting the city centre.
Over 1,000 children from ten primary schools in Kingston-upon-Hull got to choose and keep books, thanks to funding from British Land. This was part of a year long project to inspire a love of reading, through the National Literacy Trust's Reading Is Fundamental initiative. Children also enjoyed a series of events designed to change the way reading for pleasure is seen in the schools. A teacher at Clifton Primary School, Rachel Wilkes, wrote of her first event: "In the afternoon the Reading Is Fundamental children came to our bookstall and chose themselves a book - the look on their faces when they found out it was theirs to keep was brilliant - I wished I had videoed it!"
After school we had a book sale of withdrawn library stock and most families came into school and bought some books for the children. Seeing the staff dressed up as characters from books helped to start lots of book type conversations with them which was a bit of a first!
The team at St Stephen's is working with Yorkshire Forward and Cityworks to generate employment opportunities for disadvantaged local people. They are also working on initiatives to encourage the regeneration of the city centre. These include the Hull Bondholder Scheme, run by Hull Forward, a group of local businesses and stakeholders promoting the city. As a member of the Chamber of Commerce, St Stephen's is supporting small and medium sized businesses in the Humber region.
St Stephen's provided use of space on the malls to a number of charities, enabling them to raise both funds and awareness. These included Hull College, NHS Hull, the local police and the Salvation Army, as well as Bransholme Woodland Warriors, a group of local residents and community workers who are trying to regenerate a local area of woodland.
British Land 2009. All Rights Reserved.
For our full Corporate Responsibility Report: britishland.com/crReport/2009