Economic Impact Assessment: Ettrick Riverside

The Ettrick Riverside project involved the £6 million redevelopment of a former Victorian Mill to provide office space and meeting facilities. The evaluation aims to report against achievements to date in order to provide some estimates of the impact achieved.

The methodology involved three days deskbased work and included two stages: the review of the ERDF application(s) and previous evaluation studies, and the access of gross monitoring data from the project manager; and the application of previous evaluation evidence and the report on the estimated outputs (space developed, gross and net jobs, sales and GVA) from the project.

Development to date has included four floors – ground, first, second and third. It should be taken into consideration that the original plan for the project included a fifth floor (Floor 4) which has not yet been developed. Based on current occupancy and uptake, it was calculated that at full capacity the building could accommodate 236 gross jobs. This would suggest a net jobs target of 173 if the ratio of net to gross jobs targets is maintained therefore the current job levels would be 43% of target. However the assessment of net jobs does not take account of past tenants who may have potentially benefited from being located in the building. With regard to gross sales, the project has generated 162% of the original target. It was also found that the project appears to have influenced a number of other developments in the local area which may otherwise not have materialised.

No specific recommendations were made but it is suggested that the final evaluation include further assessments which were not possible at this time, including an assessment of previous tenants and of the impact of the project on other developments.