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IED Annual Award 2023 winner: Wakefield Council, Tileyard North at Rutland Mills
Wakefield Council is the winner of the IED’s Collaborative Initiative of the Year award for the Tileyard North project at Rutland Mills.
The award, sponsored by WECD, recognises outstanding cross-sector economic development collaboration between two or more partners drawn from local authorities, private sector, third sector, business, and academia.
The Tileyard North project is the final piece in Wakefield Council’s Waterfront 15-year masterplan that provides 10 acres of Wakefield’s historic riverside with a new lease of life and sees it become a significant cultural destination in the North of England, located adjacent to the internationally-renowned Hepworth Gallery.
The scheme is a collaborative eight-year redevelopment project between Wakefield Council, City & Provincial Properties (CPP) and Tileyard London, and will transform the Rutland Mills complex into a 135,000 sqft creative industries hub for West Yorkshire.
The £40 million project has been jointly funded between partners with support from the UK Government Levelling Up Fund and Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership (LEP) in partnership with the West Yorkshire Combined Authority.
When regeneration is completed in 2024, the site will be the UK’s largest creative community outside of London, converting the space into a mixed-use, creative and cultural cluster boasting cutting-edge collective facilities, and state-of-the-art design and technology. Tileyard North will engage creatives from emerging and established artists and makers from the region, and across the UK.
Cllr Michael Graham, Wakefield Council’s Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Economic Growth, said: “This is a fantastic achievement and celebrates the hard work over the past six years from both the Council and Tileyard. We are incredibly proud of the transformation of Wakefield’s historic waterfront into a vibrant space for creativity and entertainment. It has, and will continue to have, such a positive impact for people and businesses in our district and across our region.”
IED Director Bev Hurley CBE, who hosted the IED’s 40th anniversary awards evening sponsored by Key Cities, said: “Many congratulations to Wakefield Council as the winner of our Collaborative Initiative of the Year award. The submission was chosen by our judges due to the wide array of organisations and departments cited, significant scale of the initiative, and evidence of realising outputs and outcomes. They described it as an ambitious, future-facing project that will clearly deliver big economic impacts for the community, with the first phase already complete.”