More than 100 businesses back an open letter calling for a pause in the process to deliver the £300m Northgate Development to allow a major rethink.

There is concern at the amount of retail in the city centre regeneration project given the growing number of empty shops although it would include leisure attractions, 25,000 sq ft of offices and 120 homes.

Worryingly there are no known private sector financial backers to fund the delayed Cheshire West and Chester Council -driven scheme.

That’s why Tim Kenney of Kenneymoore property consultants and Guy Butler, co-founder of property firm Glenbrook and ex-chairman of Chester Growth Partnership, have penned the open letter to council leader Cllr Samantha Dixon and deputy chief executive Charlie Seward.

It calls for the council and its advisors to ‘stop work immediately’ and carry out a review.

Among the 100-plus signatories are Chester Business Club, Chester Grosvenor hotel, Oliver & Co Solicitors, Beresford Adams Commercial, Bolton Birch, Rickitt Partnership, Oddfellows Hotel , Barlows, Mason Owen, Delamere Forest Properties, Wild Commercial, Dandy Group, Thompson Cox Partnership, Wright Marshall, Wok & Go/Jack Burrito and Lowe & Co.

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Mr Kenney, with 35 years’ experience in the property business, supports elements of phase one including a new market hall, civic square, cinema and restaurant hub. But he disagrees with demolishing the Crowne Plaza hotel only to build a replacement just yards away given it would add millions to development costs.

Commenting on the phase two, he continued: “What I’m not for is the thick end of 500,000 sq metres of new shopping in Chester which simply won’t be let. Not only will it not be successful but the tenants that move into it won’t be new tenants to the city. They will be relocations from existing central sites.”

Guy Butler, co-founder of Manchester-based property firm Glenbrook, who worked with Tim Kenney on the open letter.

Mr Kenney said people openly backing the public letter and those offering tacit support had praised him and Mr Butler, a driving force behind Liverpool One, for ‘articulating what everyone is thinking’.

What the pair hope to avoid is a repeat of the council-backed £80m Baron’s Quay shopping centre in Northwich which has so far attracted just three tenants.

Mr Kenney, who denies any business or political motivation, added: “This is just pure civic pride and actually it’s like watching a train crash in slow motion. Everyone bar the council and the interested parties probably think I’m right – 108 signatures and counting says that I’m right.”

Cheshire Oaks opened in March 1995

He says Chester needs to acknowledge it can’t compete with Cheshire Oaks , Liverpool One, Broughton Shopping Park or the Trafford Centre so must do its own thing.

“The way people shop and how they shop has changed. The advent of internet shopping has just had such a big impact on retail. But people still want to go to Cheshire Oaks. It has a long list of tenants that would love to go into Cheshire Oaks. Why? Because it’s a big success, it’s all about shopping, you go there for the day and it’s free parking and all the rest of it but Chester doesn’t have that. The council even abolished Free after 3.”

“Chester has to fight smarter. Cities like Chester have to have at their heart a place that you want to come to. Whatever it is that replaces the Northgate project has to be focused on ‘I want to go to Chester because...”

Mr Kenney added: “I’m all for anything that brings people into the city. That could be offices, it could a major tourist attraction based around all the history.”

Chester's Eastgate Street

Explaining the main thrust of his thinking, he stressed: “We need more people living in the city centre, people in the city centre equates to direct spend in a city centre so we should really be focusing on residential and I don’t mean students – we have got enough students – in fact that’s a bubble waiting to burst.”

The timing of the intervention is unfortunate from a council perspective as it awaits the outcome of a Compulsory Purchase Order inquiry aimed at buying 70 properties in the regeneration area, moving the market and carrying out changes to the highway.

Mr Kenney, who is still collecting signatures for the open letter which he will deliver on Friday (May 18), has heard talk the Northgate mix could be ‘tweaked’ once the council has all the development land in its possession but his understanding is the terms of the CPO would be ‘scheme-specific’.

Cheshire West and Chester Council has not commented.