Peterborough was designated for growth and got a university sixty years later
- Designated a new town in 1967
- ARU Peterborough opened September 2022
- £30m campus, 2,000 students at launch
- A Norman cathedral inside a parkway plan
How Peterborough grew
A cathedral, a new town plan, and a university sixty years late.
Designated for expansion
Peterborough was designated a new town and grew enormously, absorbing London overspill into a plan of parkways and townships built around a medieval core.
A cathedral city rebuilt as a new town
Peterborough has a Norman cathedral and, a few minutes away, the road layout of a 1960s new town. It was designated for expansion in 1967 and grew enormously, absorbing London overspill into a plan of parkways and townships around a medieval core.
That produced an unusual city: ancient at the centre, deliberately engineered around the edges, with a road system designed by people who assumed everyone would drive.
It also produced a business base with very little sentimentality about heritage, which is refreshing. Firms here compete on service rather than on how long they have been here.
What that means if you trade in Peterborough
Peterborough is a logistics and distribution centre serving a large rural catchment across the Fens, with a young, diverse and fast-growing population.
Because so much of the city arrived recently, there is far less inherited loyalty than in comparable places. Customers are genuinely available to be won.
What Peterborough businesses ask us for
Nobody owes anybody loyalty
A city of newcomers chooses on evidence. Prices, photographs, reviews.
Name the townships
Orton, Bretton, Werrington, Hampton. People locate themselves by these.
Cover the Fens
Whittlesey, March, Yaxley. Rural customers need to know before ringing.
A city that got its university last
Peterborough spent decades as one of the largest cities in England without a university of its own, which shaped the local economy more than people tend to credit. Graduates left and mostly did not come back, and employers recruited from Cambridge, Leicester and London rather than locally.
That changed in September 2022, when ARU Peterborough opened — a £30 million campus launched with two thousand students, built in partnership with the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority and the city council. A second teaching building followed in 2023 and a third, The Lab, in 2024. Three buildings in three years is unusually quick.
For a local business the practical consequence is a young population that now has a reason to stay, and a slow shift in what employers can recruit for. It is early, and the honest position is that the effect is still arriving rather than already arrived.
Where people work
A distribution and services economy built on location, now with a research and teaching layer bolted on.
ARU Peterborough
A £30 million campus opened September 2022 with 2,000 students, expanded with a second building in 2023 and The Lab in 2024.
Opportunity Peterborough
The city’s economic development company, and the practical first stop for premises, skills programmes and business support.
The parkway economy
The 1967 plan produced a city designed around driving, with distribution and light industry on the edges and a walkable medieval centre in the middle. Both are real markets and they behave differently.
How Peterborough businesses use their sites
A business base with very little sentimentality about heritage, which is genuinely refreshing. Firms here compete on service rather than on how long they have been trading, and customers respond to specifics rather than to history.
The geography matters more than in most cities this size. A place designed around parkways and townships means "Peterborough" covers a lot of ground — Orton, Bretton, Werrington and Hampton are separate places to the people who live in them.
Trades and home services
Name the townships. In a city built as a plan, people identify with their part of it rather than the whole.
Clinics, salons and studios
Online booking and published prices. A young, growing population books on a phone rather than ringing.
Shops, cafés and hospitality
The cathedral and city centre trade differently from the retail parks. Say which one you are, and put parking on the page — it matters here.
Distribution and B2B
Peterborough sits on the A1 and the East Coast Main Line, and a lot of local business is built on that. Coverage and turnaround are what buyers compare.
Why FastSites works here
A city planned for growth is a reasonable place to start small and add later. One page, live in days, at a published price — and no assumption that you need fifteen pages before you have the customers to justify them.
Built mobile-first and light. Tell us which parts of the city you cover, because in Peterborough that is a real question rather than a formality.
How well do you know Peterborough?
Five quick questions. Get all five right and you win a 10% off discount code for your website. Every answer is somewhere on this page, so have a read if you get stuck.
Peterborough quiz · 1 of 5
When was Peterborough designated for expansion as a new town?
Common questions
The simplest one-page site starts at £15 a month, with the website build included and nothing to pay up front. Every plan and its price is published on the pricing page before you speak to anyone.
Sign-up takes about 3 minutes and the build questionnaire about 5. Most sites are then designed and built within 21 hours, and live within days of the brief being answered.
No setup fee and no hidden extras. Your monthly plan covers the website build and hosting. Done-for-you plans have a 12-month minimum term, then you can cancel any time from your dashboard.
Yes — you can upgrade at any time as your business grows, with no need to start over.