Crescent Gardens: 'Buyers lined up' claims developer

The Harrogate developer behind lavish £75 million plans to transform Crescent Gardens says potential buyers are already lined up for most of its luxury apartments.
The future of Crescent Gardens? A visualisation of how the restaurant would look in the public space aspect of the 75m plans for Harrogate's former council headquarters.The future of Crescent Gardens? A visualisation of how the restaurant would look in the public space aspect of the 75m plans for Harrogate's former council headquarters.
The future of Crescent Gardens? A visualisation of how the restaurant would look in the public space aspect of the 75m plans for Harrogate's former council headquarters.

Speaking to the Harrogate Advertiser at the first public consultation for the most ambitious project in Harrogate for decades, Adam Thorpe said clients had agreed to move into ten of the 12 properties.

New! Traffic chaos in Harrogate town centreMr Thorpe said: "Every apartment is bespoke. That means they can be configured exactly as they wish.

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"Some have asked to have several apartments redesigned as one."

"We have five clients ready to buy once planning permission is given.

"They aren't from London. I can tell you they are all from Yorkshire itself or have strong ties to Yorkshire or the Harrogate area."

After months of criticism and pressure to explain more in some quarters, Mr Thorpe turned up in person at the public consultation last week, flanked by representatives of the team behind the possible development, including Henry Squire and Alessandro Mangiavacchi of the project's architects, Squire & Partners.

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There was a sizable turnout in the five star setting of Rudding Park Hotel for Thursday's event which was open for five hours with visualisations showing the project's plans for not only apartments but a swish new restaurant, spa and art gallery.

Despite the amount of controversy over the project, the atmosphere was civil.

But some members of the public the Harrogate Advertiser spoke to afterwards in private expressed their doubts over the plan, some arguing it jeopardised the area's civic nature and questioning whether the lavish redevelopment would ever take place,

But Mr Thorpe said the event had been a success overall: "We had an 80% positive response according to the people our professional team spoke to on the day.

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"There was some concern about the impact of the restaurant and whether Harrogate really needed another high end restaurant. This is being considered carefully by our team.

"The main positives highlighted were the overall quality of the design and detail of the scheme and its improvement to the public realm with the work to the gardens."