remember we’re creating broad, open
spaces to the front and back of the Fire
Station where open-air performances can
be held.
“It will be wonderful.
“During the closures, we’ve also
taken the opportunity to do significant
restoration work on The Dun Cow and
The Peacock.
“The Peacock’s new tenants are in the
process of fitting out the top floor as
music and recording studios.
“This will become the Northern
Academy of Music Education, which will
be based in the Peacock and the top floor
of the Fire Station and the first degree
students in Contemporary Music will start
in Autumn 2021.”
“We’re trying really hard not to call it
a rock school or school of rock,” smiles
Paul.
The stunning modernity of the new
auditorium, along with the studios above
the revamped fire station, to which it is
connected, will complement the largest
group of listed buildings in the city,
which surround it, making this part of
Sunderland both historic and vibrant.
It will also mark the completion of a
project which has been seven years in the
making.
“In all, around £18m will have been
spent on the two pubs, the fire station, the
auditorium and the surrounding areas,"
reveals Paul
“We bought the pubs to make sure their
character would fit in with the area we
were developing but now they are integral
to the project and the income from both
of them goes to the MAC Trust (Music
Arts and Culture Trust), which is leading
on the whole project.
“The Arts Council England, the
Heritage Lottery Fund and Sunderland
City Council have all been very
supportive. They can see our financial
and creative commitment and that makes
them prepared to support us.”
That, in essence, is the key to the
regeneration success of the MAC Trust
– it is not just what it has done, it is what
it has encouraged others to do in an
area set to become the beating heart of
Sunderland in future years.
“With the MAC Trust, it’s all to do with
partnerships,” he points out.
And that extends to others investing
in the vision – like John and Irene Hays
choosing Keel Square to be Hays Travel’s
new HQ, or Legal and General investing
£100m developing the neighbouring Vaux
site on which the new City Hall is rising,
or Sunderland Council restoring the Town
Park around the minster to its former
glory.
“The challenge for Sunderland as a
post-industrial city is that the city centre
had almost died and you needed to
reinvigorate it and that’s about activity,
cultural activity – getting people to come
in and enjoy themselves, be it for a drink,
a meal or a show," says Paul.
“Then you have to draw people in –
jobs and housing – that’s absolutely the
way to go, and as a city, we're attracting
that investment, so it remains an exciting
time.
“You have to have the jobs and the
places to live, and people have to be
educated to do good jobs, and then you
want them to have a place where they
are proud of their history, heritage,
architecture and what’s going on.
”Not even Covid-19 will stop that
coming together, now that we've got that
momentum."
The 68-year-old's considered and
long-term view of the situation is likely
influenced by more than three decades in
business, building the Leighton Group, a
primarily tech-based group of companies
which emerged from Paul’s first business,
a publishing company established in the
1980s.
Leighton – named after a Sunderland
street where the Callaghan family grew
up – really took off with the rise of the
internet in the early 1990s, when Leighton
emerged as digital tech entrepreneurs.
“It’s an interesting story,” he recalls. “In
1992, my brother Gerard, Chris Wilds
and I were very early into the internet
and I was looking at American websites
looking for inspiration and came across
Pittsburgh.com – a website for the city.
“It’s a city which has a lot of similarities
with Sunderland, an old steel town, not
very glamorous but full of good people.
“And so we went and registered
Sunderland.com – it was our first domain
name.
“And in 1994 we launched two
websites called Sunderland.com and
SunderlandAFC.com, with the then leader
of the council and Peter Reid officially
launching them.
“Once we had learned how to register
domain names we grew quite quickly to
become the UK’s biggest dotcom registrar
– customers would choose whatever
domain they wanted and we would
process it for them.
“It was a bit of a crazy time, the late
‘90s – like a gold rush. In a gold rush, you
can do three things – you can buy a shovel
and go prospecting for gold, you can stay
at home and insist the prospectors are
wasting their time, or you can sell shovels.
“We sold shovels. We were the shovel
sellers of the internet gold rush!”
Since then, the Leighton Group has
diversified many times more – creating
and investing in companies such as
4Projects, Communicator, SalesCycle,
Workcast and footy.com, as well as
Leighton itself.
The group has offices in the USA,
Europe and the Far East but still has its
HQ on Rainton Bridge Business Park in
Houghton-le-Spring.
“Over the years we have learnt how to
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