Jonathan Welch finds out more about the successful partnership between Teesside Park, Arriva and Stagecoach, which is delivering positive results for everyone
Partnerships.’ How often do we hear that word at industry events or in press releases? It feels a bit like one of the buzzwords of the 2020s across the industry. An interesting conversation at the launch of Stagecoach North East’s new fleet of Yutong electric buses at its Stockton depot highlighted an excellent example of the importance of partnership working. Teesside Park is a large out-of-town retail and leisure park, the kind that we’re all familiar with: lots of well-known brand names, and lots of parking. After speaking to Catherine Furlong, Centre Director for British Land, which owns Teesside Park, at the Stagecoach event, I caught up with her again a few weeks later to hear the full story of how a traditionally car-centric destination has successfully increased its footfall in co-operation with local bus operators Stagecoach and Arriva.
Before speaking to Catherine, I made a point of finding out a bit more about Teesside Park, and was both pleased and impressed to see that bus travel information was one of the first things that appears, and prominently at that, on the Teesside Park website. Information is provided about Stagecoach’s routes 36, 37 and 38, and Arriva’s X12 and 16, as well as the Tees Flex demand responsive transport scheme, including fares and links to timetables. The page appeared to have been recently updated too, promoting an improvement to Arriva’s 12 from 20 July that will add extra late evening stops at the complex’s Showcase Cinema, which it will also serve all day on Sundays and bank holidays.
“We do like to promote it. Every opportunity we’ve had, we’ve promoted the bus services, through social media and in press articles. We’ve had our bus shelters wrapped to advertise them. At Christmas, we encouraged visitors to use public transport. We’ve done various different events with Arriva and Stagecoach, and we’ve got something else coming up with Smooth Radio and Arriva to promote our latest service too,” Catherine explained, before giving a little bit more background to the development. “Teesside Park has become the main shopping and leisure destination in the Tees Valley. It’s about 34 years old now and originally it was designed as a bulky goods retail park where you used to be able to buy things like a new fridge or freezer, or wallpaper and all the rest of it. People like to come here because the offer’s right. We’ve got all of the brands that they like, the cinema and restaurants. British Land has invested heavily in all of the public realm areas, so there are green spaces, and it’s clean and safe. We have around about 13 million visitors each year, which for a shopping centre is very good, but we’ve got the same infrastructure that we had 34 years ago.
“It hasn’t changed, and it can’t change because of the way the park is laid out. Up until recently about 99% of our visitors arrived by car, which excludes a whole load of people who don’t have access to one; anyone who didn’t drive couldn’t come and enjoy Teesside Park.”
Changing priorities
“Over the years we’ve had various different bus services, but it tended to be one service which was badly connected,” Catherine continued. “There was a lack of investment in the North East in terms of public transport compared to areas such as London and the South. That meant that Teesside Park pretty much relied on its visitors coming by car.
“I arrived here in 2020. As we recovered and came out of the Covid-19 pandemic, I very quickly realised that we didn’t have any public transport. We had one service which was half hourly and it connected us to Middlesbrough and Stockton town centres, but our occupiers, the retailers, were telling us that they couldn’t recruit and retain people because many people who work in retail in entry-level jobs don’t have cars. A lot of them are quite young. We employ just under 3,000 people here.
“At the same time, I also recognised that as we were coming out of Covid, all of the bus operators had been really badly hit by it. I didn’t know anything about bus operations at all, but as I started looking into it, I recognised that actually it was going to be quite tough. The operators were in a difficult position after the pandemic. I knew it would take time, and there was a lot of talking and lobbying, including with our local MP who is a great supporter of Teesside Park. We spoke to the Tees Valley Combined Authority, and the two local authorities, because we actually straddle two local authorities, Middlesbrough and Stockton, and had help from our Metro Mayor Ben Houchen.
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