The news that John Lewis had decided to pull out of the planned £700 million Tithebarn project was a big disappointment to anyone who genuinely cares about the future of Preston, but in all honesty few of us were surprised when the news came through on Wednesday afternoon.

The plans for this hugely ambitious scheme were first hatched back in 1999. Since then the project has been clouded in controversy. The local heritage lobby objected strongly to proposals that would have seen the bus station re-located. Three years ago the original preferred developer, Grosvenor, withdrew from the scheme. And in the background a fierce battle raged between Preston City Council and it’s local authority neighbours in Blackpool and Blackburn.

By the time the final legal challenge to Tithebarn had been overcome, in June this year, we were in the middle of the worst economic downturn for a generation, and a major regeneration initiative such as that proposed in the middle of an economic boom twelve years ago now looked risky to many, and absolute madness to others.

In some quarters there will now be a desire to navel gaze, indulge in a ‘blame game’ and, from the cynics who always said Tithebarn would never happen, a temptation to say ‘we told you so.’

Aside from the fact that the seeds of this projects problems were sewn by civic leaders who have now left the stage, the debate as to whose fault all of this is takes us nowhere fast.

Preston City Council, It’s partners and the business community must work together to find an alternative solution to regenerate what is a declining city. Investment, renewal and jobs are desperately needed, and that can only be done with the genuine engagement of the private sector.

Downtown has brought two significant and serious investors to Preston. The reception they received was, to say the least, lukewarm. Perhaps there will be more appetite from the city’s senior decision makers to have a more constructive dialogue with interested parties in the future.

It should also be said that it is not all doom and gloom. The planning permissions that have been won will be a useful carrot to dangle for potential future developers. A private sector led community interest group is exploring ways in which Winckley Square can be revived. Commercial offices will be developed in the city centre. And surely the current city leadership will see the sense in offering a solution that is more practical, realistic and deliverable.

The one thing we should demand of them is that they do this quickly. Preston cannot afford another decade of stagnation.

Downtown has just come to the end of our ‘Business Week’ season. Every year, we have a five day programme of events that focuses on business and entrepreneurs in each of the locations where we operate, and this last week we have been in Liverpool, where over 400 delegates attended the five events that were organised.

In April, we held a Business Week in Manchester, and Lancashire’s Business Week took place in May.

In Liverpool and Manchester, we hosted all of our activities in city centre venues, and we attracted businesses from many areas outside of the respective cities, with companies from Sefton, Knowsley and the Wirral happy to come into Liverpool, and similarly firms from Bury, Salford and Trafford attending our Manchester forums.

In Lancashire though there is still a resistance, it seems, for people in East Lancashire to travel to West Lancashire, and vice versa.

Given the fabulous motorway networks, which we never tire of telling potential inward investors about, and the relatively quick journey times across the county compared to the amount of time you sit in your car trying to get into Liverpool or Manchester city centre, the problem appears even more perverse.

The row over the Local Enterprise Partnership, bun fights over the Tithebarn development and the endless battle for supremacy between the county council and Blackburn Unitary can explain the divide among public sector agencies- but the notion that we in the private sector cannot see the potential of doing business county wide is difficult to fathom in a global economy.

For our part, the Downtown Lancashire goal is to create an environment that allows companies from across the entire county to engage and hopefully do some business together. To achieve that goal, we will be hosting events in Ribble Valley, Blackburn and Preston over the summer, and we hope many of you will come along and see what we have to offer. In the absence of a recognised hub, maybe we will have to find Lancashire’s Switzerland in order to secure a regular meeting place. In the meantime, we’ll go ‘on tour’ and do our bit in bringing the red rose business community closer together.