£156m Regeneration of Orchard Park in Hull – Superfast Broadband Opportunities

The Hull Daily Mail has reported that Orchard Park in Hull will benefit from £156 million to re-develop the area. As somebody who originally hails from the estate then this is interesting news – albeit with concern that decent properties will be culled and existing communities face uncertainty and upheaval.

The redevelopment will include the demolition of 1,040 existing properties and the building of 1,700 new homes.

This development takes place in the context of other projects happening in the area including a new £14m health care centre opening later this year, and proposed new £38m Academy school on Queen Elizabeth Park to replace the existing Sir Henry Cooper secondary school. It is also hoped that any redevelopment will lead to a revamp of the estate’s shopping centre which has been a long-standing need in the area.

The Orchard Park Estate was originally planned in the late 1930’s. The Hull Daily Mail commented at the time that living on Orchard Park would be like living in a new sort of world with its own parks, cinema and bomb-proof shelters!

The Estate actually got constructed in the early 1960’s and may not have included the hoped for cinema and shelters, but was built with the most modern television cable system available at that time already installed into its infrastructure.

Rediffusion was a Hull based firm that pioneered the concept of cable television. Each new home built on Orchard Park had television cables already pre-installed. The local school Sir Leo Schultz High was wired up and even had its own TV studio.

In light of this historical link that Orchard Park shares with new technology, then there is, once again, a marvellous opportunity to build the new estate with regard to, and to cater for, the most modern systems currently available?

Fibrestream have announced exciting opportunities to bring super-fast broadband to the city and, in my humble opinion, perhaps needs to be a partner in this venture.

There is something extremely satisfying and equally justifiable in bringing modern digital inclusion technology to an area of the city that has for so long been associated with social exclusion!?

Items of interest: Remembering Rediffusion