Mixed-use developments – response, regeneration, revival
- Karen Fletcher
- Apr 9
- 5 min read
In the past few months, The SectorScope has tracked several stories highlighting mixed use developments. Often, these are associated with regenerating run-down city centres, reviving brownfield sites or former industrial spaces.
* Atlantic Wharf - an extensive 30-acre site with a development value of around £1 billion, this regeneration area in Butetown, Cardiff Bay is leisure-led with a 15,000-capacity arena, but also providing space for residential, retail, office and hotel.
* Mayfield Park – a £1.4 billion regeneration of underutilized brownfield land next to Manchester Picadilly Station. The new development includes over 800 homes, restaurants, cafes and community spaces. Plans also include two buildings providing 325,000 sq ft of prime office space. The existing park area will also be significantly expanded and improved.
* Mell Square – developer Muse submitted plans in March 2025 for the regeneration of Solihull’s Mell square. These include 1,600 homes, shops, cafes, bars and public spaces. A range of green and flexible spaces are also outlined.
* Smithfield – Lendlease is rethinking Birmingham’s former wholesale, Indoor, Open and Rag markets. The regeneration project will create a new centrepiece for the city, with over 3,000 new homes, leisure facilities, a landscaped park and a new home for the markets.
These are just some of the largest projects underway or planned – many others are taking shape across the UK. But what’s the attraction of mixed-use projects, and why are they so closely linked to regeneration?
One of the key drivers in this market is that mixed use developments are favoured by national and local government planning strategies. Mixed use projects help government at all levels tackle several macro-economic challenges – provision of local housing; workspace for local businesses; adding to local leisure facilities.
The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) also spotlights social targets for developments that can be supported by the mixed-use approach. This means creating spaces where people can interact and which: “promote social interaction including opportunities for meetings between people who might not otherwise come into contact with each other, for example through mixed use developments.”
The NPPF also points to mixed-use developments as a solution that makes effective use of land in meeting the needs for homes and other spaces. As a Forbes noted in its feature on the rise of mixed-use across Europe: “By integrating residential, commercial, cultural and green spaces into cohesive environments, mixed-use developments offer a pragmatic approach to revitalising cities and optimising land use.”
Another aspect of mixed-use development is that by providing the opportunities for local work, leisure and community they can reduce reliance on the car – helping to emissions and traffic congestion.
Support from local planners is vital to the success of mixed-use projects, as they are complex projects and there is a lot that can go wrong. Finance can sometimes be challenging since these projects cover a range of markets (residential, office, leisure) which may leave investors feeling more exposed than in single-sector developments.
Developers can also feel the pressure of combining multi-disciplinary teams that can successfully work together. And meeting the planning requirements for each aspect of a mixed use development is no easy task.
There is also an art and science of balancing the needs of the different future tenants – commercial and residential. As this Implan blog notes, bringing together these two groups to achieve a safe and vibrant community can be challenging: “In practice, as is the case with naturally-occurring communities, this sort of balanced civic harmony takes years to achieve.”
We can see how pitfalls can slow progress on mixed-use projects if we consider the history London’s Kings Cross area. In 2025, this is considered a highly successful example of mixed-use – delivering office space, residential units, retail and leisure close to major transport hubs that take passengers into the UK and Europe.
However, during the 1980s and 1990s several attempts to revive what had become a run-down and undesirable area failed. This useful analysis of the history of this project by Centre for Cities notes a number of key problems, including:
* Fragmented land ownership
* Sub-optimal use of space
* Planning system uncertainty
* Preference for short term gains
There were also questions over who should invest first, and what type of tenants would be attracted to the space.
It was not until the late 1990s and the announcement of that the rail link through the Channel Tunnel would arrive in St Pancras that the regeneration truly got underway. The announcement allowed for the formation of a single entity to form and take ownership of the land – providing a platform for the development finally to lift off.
There are also benefits from mixed-use projects that can be appealing to developers and financial backers. Commercial real estate is facing challenging times, and unpredictability is now a built-in factor for once-stable sectors such as offices.
While the mixed-use approach includes more sectors which could add to risk, the flipside of this view is that this approach to development provides some protection from this, as it spreads risk (not putting all the developer’s eggs in one basket) by appealing to a much broader range of potential buyers and tenants.
For example, office tenants in a mixed-use environment know that their workers can find nearby housing; retailers on the same project will have a ready-made market of office workers and residents – and the same applies to bars, restaurants and leisure facilities. This points to another benefit of mixed use developments which is that they can support local economies by delivering a local, ready-made market.
We are set to see more mixed-use developments across the UK. Just as this report was posted, Hub announced that it is working with the owner of The Liberty shopping centre in Romford to deliver on Havering Council’s ‘masterplan to create a vibrant, mixed-use town centre’ which will provide 1,000 new homes alongside retail and leisure facilities.
UK government at national and local levels face multiple challenges – housing shortages; Net Zero 2050 goals; economic uncertainty and a growing need for a sense of social cohesion.
While mixed-use developments can’t claim to solve all of these, they do help to address them at a very local level. They are a response to a range of issues, which are also helping to regenerate and revive areas that have often been in decline.
