£100m DWP Office Block – Talbot Gateway Phase 3

The new government offices off East Topping Street are now complete. Blackpool Council had announced on 10 November 2021 that the Civil Service is to relocate more than 3000 staff to the town centre. It’s the £100m DWP Office Block – Phase 3 of Talbot Gateway and transformation of the Hop Inn.

Five Phases of Work at Talbot Gateway

Talbot Gateway is the collective name for the area around Blackpool North Station, Talbot Road and Cookson Street. This large area of largely run-down properties and waste land is mid-way through a huge regeneration project. It’s transforming this part of town.

• The first phase saw the construction of Sainsbury’s supermarket, the development of offices, car parking and Bickerstaffe Square. Completed in 2014 it now accommodates more than 1,000 public and private-sector employees including Blackpool Council. More about Phase One of Talbot Gateway and Bickerstaffe Square
• The Holiday Inn and Tramway Terminus marks Phase Two of the Talbot Gateway project in Blackpool’s Central Business District. But this isn’t the end of the transformation around here!
• Phase Three includes the restoration of The Hop pub and conversion into a dentists. Plus clearing land and building a new Department for Work and Pensions office block for 3000 workers. More about Phase Three DWP offices
• An announcement in 2023 confirmed the siting of the new Blackpool ‘Multiversity’ off Cookson Street. More about the Phase Four Multiversity complex
• And a further Phase Five office development, revealed in June 2024, is an office block on a brownfield site near Blackpool North Station, off Talbot Road.

New £100m DWP Office Block – Phase 3 of Talbot Gateway Officially Opens

The new headquarters for more than 3,000 civil servants opened in Blackpool on Friday 9 May 2025 by Minister for Transformation Andrew Western. The 215,000 square foot Fylde View site will bring together Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Service Delivery teams from across the Fylde Coast into one central location. Bringing more jobs to the area and boosting the local economy.

The new £100 million hub opened operationally in March 2025 and will be fully staffed by mid-June. It forms part of the Talbot Gateway development and regeneration of the town to create a Central Business District providing educational and vocational training work placements and community engagement.

The newly completed building is another step in the dramatic transformation of a shabby area of Blackpool. It’s a statement building in itself and the new landscaping around it makes a huge difference. Although not really large enough to call a park, it’s a big improvement already and will get better as the plants mature. Take a walk through the area and you’ll see how much more pleasant it is, and busier too with more people around. The next photos are from May 2025.

Delivering the £100m DWP Office Block – phase 3 of Talbot Gateway

This was a run-down, two and a half acre site between Cookson Street and East Topping Street. Its regeneration will make a huge difference to the whole town centre area. This artists impression showed what it might look like seen from Church Street (Clue: the grey box above the buildings!)

Blackpool Council already owned 90% of the land to enable the development to go ahead. Compulsory Purchase Orders were used where necessary, for example at King Street, to assemble the whole site.

We took a walk around the site before anything happened, in early 2021 –

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Approving Plans for Phase 3

Blackpool Council agreed the 50 document outline planning application at their meeting on 16 March 2021. This was for demolition of buildings at the site close to Bickerstaffe House.

In May 2021 the council’s executive unanimously agreed a set of recommendations. Including funding of almost £100m for the ambitious scheme to redevelop an area of King Street. This includes £55m for the shell of the building plus the cost of fitting it out. And land acquisitions to enable development to proceed. Including the cost of relocating a dental surgery to the former Hop Inn, to be be remodelled while retaining its historic frontage.

Demolition includes properties at 5-31 King Street, some fronting Cookson Street, and partial demolition of the Hop Inn. The area is marked in pink on the plan below, and shown with the red dot on the Google map.

Blackpool Hub and Centre for Health and Disability Assessment (CHDA)

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) came to an agreement with Blackpool Council and partner Muse Developments to develop the new seven-storey regional hub in Talbot Gateway. DWP signed a 25-year lease to occupy the highly-sustainable, purpose-built offices. It’s part of a strategic plan to centralise civil service jobs in the heart of Blackpool.

More than 3000 service delivery staff will be relocated from offices across the Fylde coast to the new £100m office development in Blackpool town centre. They’ll move from existing sites at Warbreck House and Ryscar House. Both were under-utilised and in need of significant investment. Staff will begin to relocate to Fylde View from next month with the final transfer expected by June 2025.

Fylde View is the Department’s new, high quality, purpose-built Service and Support Centre. It provides 24,500 sqm of office space on a 2.4 acre site with the main entrance on the corner of Cookson Street and Deansgate. The Health Assessment Centre will be located on the ground floor.

An additional 500 sqm is occupied by the Dental Health Centre. Work includes a surface car park and new public realm works. The new landscaped space next to the building is a welcome addition. It will be a lovely green oasis for the town centre when it matures.

This deal was a long time in the making, negotiated over several years. With outline approval for the scheme granted by Blackpool Council back in March 2021, it was May 2025 when works completed. It’s part of its stated ambition to rejuvenate the town centre by the introduction of high-quality office developments. This will create and protect local jobs, drive footfall and breathe new life into the retail economy.

In November 21 approval was granted so we went to take a look around –

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An Environmentally Friendly Building

Low energy and low carbon design and material choice has been at the heart of decision making. The result is a truly energy efficient, low carbon building, located in a new, leafy town centre square An inclusive approach to sustainability from the outset makes sure the building will be as energy-efficient as possible.

High levels of insulation and air source heat pumps provide low-carbon heating and cooling. It also uses no fossil fuels for heating or domestic hot water. Demand-driven ventilation will improve indoor air quality, while at the same time allowing energy savings during times when the building is not occupied.

The new building, designed by renowned architects Make, is to BREEAM “Excellent” standard. This means it will operate on low energy and promote both sustainable development and wellbeing. The seven-storey building incorporates best practice in sustainable building design, construction, and operation. The design of it draws on Blackpool’s rich Art Deco architectural heritage. 

Before Redevelopment…

These photos of East Topping Street car park and the site for the new office block were taken in 2021.

…the science bit

During the building’s inception, partners completed early-stage whole life and upfront embodied carbon assessments, to eliminate inefficiencies where possible and reduce the building’s whole carbon footprint. This results in the new offices aiming to reduce its upfront embodied carbon intensity to 800 kgCO₂e/m^2. compared with 1100kgCO₂e/m2 for a typical office development.

Well Connected for Public Transport

The site includes a new town centre square with new cycle and pedestrian routes. Storage for over 100 bicycles is included, to encourage cycling to work. It’s within easy walking distance of the new tram interchange at Blackpool North Station which is nearing completion.

The inclusive design benefits from ground floor showers and changing facilities for commuters to use before reaching the upstairs offices. There are automatic doors, a large reception lobby, accessible tea points, meeting rooms and quiet zones. Plus flexible activity spaces, and high, airy ceiling heights throughout.

Progress Photos

Transforming the Hop Pub into a Dental Centre

The old King Street dentists first had to move out to make way for the DWP building. So along with the £100m Office Block at Phase 3 of Talbot Gateway, there’s also new life for the Hop Inn. One of Blackpool’s oldest pubs, converting it into a new dentists was the first part of the Phase 3 plans. And the new-build dental surgery includes the original facade of the Hop Inn – here’s the original artists impression.

First, the dentists vacated the building into a temporary portacabin building on the corner of King Street car park. At the same time, their new premises were being built behind the attractive original brick and stone frontage of the Hop. The vacated King Street surgery was demolished and work began on the new DWP office block.

History of The Hop Inn

Last known as The Hop Inn, this drinking establishment was first called the Veevers Hotel, dating back to 1872. The pub secured its first spirit license on 5 September 1872. And the name? It was after a Richard Veevers of Fulwood, Clerk of the Gorton Estate.

Like many public houses, over the years there have been different owners in charge. On 9 January 1900 it was sold to Threlfall Brewery. Almost 100 years later, in the 1990’s, then owners Whitbread renamed it The Hop Inn.

Closure finally came under another brand when Greene King shut the doors for the last time on 25 November 2017. But it was quickly snapped up by Blackpool Council. They bought it soon after closure, in December 2017, for expansion of the Talbot Gateway development.

Blackpool Council briefly made use of their asset while Talbot Gateway plans were being refined. It opened it as a trading pub, operated by Blackpool Entertainment Company. Then the Covid-19 pandemic happened and marked last orders at The Hop.

Work Begins at the transformational Civil Service office site in Blackpool town centre

Published February 2023

Work began on the new £100m office building in February 2023, which forms part of the place-changing £350m Talbot Gateway regeneration that is transforming the heart of Blackpool town centre.

Pictured above L-R: Alan McBride, Projects Director at Muse, Mike Horner, Development Director at Muse, Cllr Mark Smith, Cabinet Member for Business, Enterprise and Job Creation, Cllr Lynn Williams Leader of Blackpool Council and Cabinet Member for Tourism, Arts and Culture and Gary Bowker, Regional Managing Director at VINCI Building

Nationwide placemaker, Muse, and its partner, Blackpool Council, have started work bringing forward the 215,000sq ft highly-sustainable office building for the Civil Service after naming VINCI Building as the contractor.

When it completes in March 2025, the new office will generate significant new footfall to the area, boosting trade to local businesses, retailers, restaurants, cafes and leisure facilities, alongside a wealth of new job opportunities for local people. The next photos are from February 2023 –

Works On Schedule

It’s been interesting to watch the progress of the building works. Groundworks took a good while but then the steels began arriving and the framework shot up in what seemed like no time. Next came the external wall panels – almost flat packed they slotted into place over the framework below. Adding the curved windows to the entrance corner added the finishing touch.

Once the wooden fencing came down you could see the shape of the new £100m DWP Office Block – phase 3 of Talbot Gateway emerged! Then, as if by magic, with all the materials, tools and equipment cleared away, the building was complete. The following photos show construction underway –