Have goals for Peterborough up to 2026 been achieved?

"By 2026, Peterborough city centre will have become an even more attractive, vibrant and distinctive place to visit, work and live, with a greater range of attractions and facilities."

That was Peterborough City Council's stated mission in a wide-ranging planning document adopted in 2013.

It also stated the city would be a "strong, regional destination for shopping, leisure, culture, business and entertainment throughout the day and evening".

But has this vision been realised? The BBC takes a look.

The first specific infrastructure project listed as a priority in the document is building an "iconic pedestrian and cycle bridge across the embankment". This is yet to materialise, but the council said building the £8.3m Cygnet Bridge would begin this year.

Also yet to materialise – but in the works – is a "new sports village", which could include a "50-metre swimming pool" and "a new west entrance to the [railway] station".

A "centrally located cinema" in the city has been achieved, with the addition of the Odeon Luxe to the Queensgate Shopping Centre.

A hotel at Fletton Quays – also mentioned in the document – has been partially built but remains unoccupied.

Redeveloping Peterborough United's Weston Homes Stadium has not happened, despite some renovations, while a "new Bronze Age Museum" to display boats unearthed at Must Farm has not been built, but they have gone on display for the first time at Flag Fen Archaeology Park.

These projects were always ambitions rather than absolute requirements.

Peterborough City Council leader Labour's Shabina Qayyum said the city's offer for visitors was improving, with the formation of a new tourism board and Discover Peterborough website, which points residents and visitors to everything the area has to offer.

She was also complimentary about its cultural offer. Speaking about the unofficial Doctor Who display, Adventures in Time and Space, she added: "We've had the most successful exhibition ever at our museum.

"We had the largest turnout for the Christmas lights switch-on. I think things are on the up."

Louise Chantal, the director of The Cresset Theatre in Bretton, said its own regeneration and the formation of a new cultural alliance should be seen as "part of a wider desire and plan to really boost the cultural life of Peterborough generally".

"Culture, heritage and the arts need to be at the absolute centre of life in Peterborough, and it will help bring economic growth and regeneration," she said.

Dr Qayyum said growth had been "very slow previously" in the city.

"Poor decisions were made around the hotel and TK Maxx building that didn't put us in good stead," she said.

Peterborough's MP, Labour's Andrew Pakes, agreed there had been some "really bad decisions made about the city centre", including "the over-expensive fountains that the council then didn't keep up, the closure of the Regional Pool without a plan for a new one and the selling off of the city market without bringing in a new one".

He added: "The city centre's had a really tough time, losing big shops like Marks and Spencer and John Lewis, but I think 2025's begun to turn it around."

In December, Frasers opened in the former John Lewis building, and other new retailers included Sostrene Grene, Black Sheep Coffee and the return of an HMV.

Pakes added that "jobs and skills are the biggest challenges facing the city".

"We've got far too many people in low-paid, insecure work," he said.

"If we can improve the skills we have in the city and make our schools even better, we stand a better chance of attracting investment into the city."

Paul Bristow, the directly elected Conservative mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, said the region was "well placed to be the fastest growing economy in the country - and Peterborough is central to that".

"When I was the city's MP (2019 to 2024), we secured the new university, money for the Station Quarter redevelopment and a new NHS Community Diagnostic Centre," he said.

He said regional mayors were central to realising a vision which included "a new stadium for Peterborough United, a new regeneration plan for our city centre, and finally investment in places outside the city centre".

Bristow added: "City councils have far too much to do on bins, social care, and childrens' services. Working together is key."

Vice chair of Peterborough's Civic Society, Toby Wood, suggested that, as a place to live, there had been a "massive increase in the number of people living in the city centre", with "flats and apartments springing up everywhere".

"The problem is that, although we are building homes, we are not necessarily creating communities, and there is a very transient feel to this," he said.

But visitors often say they "didn't know so much was here", he added.

Peterborough City Council is in the process of drawing up a new Local Plan which will "direct growth and regeneration in Peterborough and the surrounding villages to 2044".

It does not directly replace the 2013 Vision for Peterborough, but will firm up some of the city council's latest aspirations. It is due to be put in front of the council's cabinet later this month.

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