Blackfriars is a mass of contradictions. Although one of the finest range of buildings in Gloucestershire, and the best preserved Dominican priory in the land, hardly anyone knows this 13th century jewel. A stone's throw from Gloucester's city centre, Blackfriars is not really on the way to anywhere. It is both stunning and easy to miss: beautiful, and very hard to capture in any single photograph.

Today Blackfriars is a great venue for events from weddings to our History Festival, but it is about to become much better known, and in the last fortnight I've arranged for it to be visited by two Cabinet Ministers. Why? Because Blackfriars lends its name to an area of several acres stretching down to the River Severn that is about to become our most ambitious regeneration project yet. When this happens, the knock on effect on the city centre will be huge. 

But it could have been very different. In 2010, after I became MP, I was seriously worried. There was a real threat to the future of our shire capital infrastructure in the Blackfriars area. The prison, courts, police station and county council (Shire Hall) might all leave: the Barbican (opposite the prison) be sold off when the Regional Development Agency (RDA) was closed, while the abandoned and asbestos ridden ex Fleece Hotel looked a liability that couldn't be given away.

There was potential to lose up to 2,000 jobs from Blackfriars, with devastating impact on city centre retail business, and only the city council remaining of a civic presence. A series of abandoned (and mostly ugly) buildings might, even if sold, sit empty while developers waited for the Great Recession to subside. The worst case scenario was grim. 

But,as so often, there was also an opportunity as well as a threat. The prison was an important employer, but also a major impediment to regeneration: few people choose to live beside a prison. It occupied a prime site overlooking the river and Alney Island, not that the inmates could see either. Once the decision to sell the prison was taken the main obstacle to residential development was gone. And the Recession caused the county council to reduce real estate, so that its riverside buildings are either already, or soon, available for sale. Staff have been relocated to Shire Hall, and the county council has decided to stay there. The Glos Constabulary has also made real estate decisions and will stay in the city centre. And by persuading the Department of Communitites and Local Government to transfer all the ex RDA assets (like the Barbican and the Fleece Hotel) to the city council, suddenly all of Blackfriars was in local authority or Ministry of Justice (MoJ) ownership.

Over three years I have brought a series of Justice Ministers, including the Secretary of State, to see our courts. The Department recognises their dire state and has helpfully created a new fund for new courts once the Justice Review is complete (after the elections) and decisions made on its recommendations. We should be in a strong position for consideration.

So we have seen off the main threats: kept the county council and the police in and have a potential chance (at last) to consolidate our disparate courts in one place. There is space in the Barbican provisionally allocated for this, should the Ministry of Justice decide to take up that opportunity in due course.

That is part of a draft master plan, drawn up by a partnership between myself and the two councils, and something dreamt of by the old Gloucester Heritage Urban Regeneration Company, but impossible to realise until these developments had happened. But there were two other important ingredients needed to get the regeneration of Blackfriars off to the best possible start - the future of the prison and what is now called 'public spaces'.

It was one thing to put the prison up for sale: but who was going to buy it, and what would they do with it? City council officers wanted control, if not ownership. I trusted the market on this, as did the Ministry of Justice, who were disposing of other historic prisons, and we're all delighted that City & Country Residential - with a fine record of heritage regeneration - is about to complete the paperwork to become ex HMP Gloucester's new owners. I'm sure they will have exciting ideas that will chime with the draft master plan and there will be talks soon.

The infrastructure around Blackfriars and for example the (currently two lane) riverside road is key to 'public spaces.' There is huge potential for a much wider and tree lined pedestrian and cycle area beside the river, possibly a new road system and one day I would like to see an additional bridge over the River Severn onto Alney Island for eg dog walkers. Some of the unwanted buildings could be knocked down in advance of developers buying cleared sites, and there is more clearance to be done in the Barbican. Who would fund this?

In 2013 I managed to get included in the Gloucestershire's Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP)'s Growth Fund bid a short reference to a housing led regeneration plan in Blackfriars, and the 2014 bid went into this in more detail with a specific bid for £4 million for work on public spaces and roads in an area with quality housing, some retail (the former prison Gatehouse has huge potential) and including the former Fleece Hotel, which a consortium is now looking at positively. I explained the context of the overall proposal informally to Cabinet Office and Cities Minister Greg Clark in Westminster, he and his team went through it with the LEP in detail and I invited him to visit to see Blackfriars himself.

He loved the vision, which has a very high ratio of private to public sector investment: ie every pound of taxpayer funds will generate many more of private sector investment. He especially saw the link between more people living in Blackfriars and their impact on the city centre: using city shops, pubs, cafes and restaurants, cinema and services, joining festivals and making the city centre livelier. Blackfriars will be amazingly different itself, but as a catalyst for the city centre, and convincing better retailers to come to Gloucester, it will be even more powerful.

We also both share with the University of Gloucestershire Vice Chancellor and the Centre for Cities Research the belief that no city centre has ever been successfully regenerated without a major role by the University. So an important part of the housing regeneration will be large numbers of students living in Blackfriars.All these ingredients helped make our case more compelling.

So last Thursday the Transport Secretary came and announced the approval of the Gloucestershire LEP bid. There are lots of important elements to the bid - Gloucestershire Airport, the Royal Agricultural University, cyber training and a Renewable Energy Resource Centre, but I persuaded him to make the announcement in Blackfriars, a building that has come through hard times and is now a symbol of regeneration itself, and a great setting for an announcement for the county.

The wind is now fair set for an announcement of the master plan in early March - to interest developers and to kick start consultation and reactions from my constituents about this bold ambition. The Gloucester Quays have changed impressions of shopping and eating in Gloucester and bring in over 5 million visitors a year: but Blackfriars will change people's perceptions of living in Gloucester, and that will have the most impact on the city centre.  

I think Henry 111 would have approved of the announcement of the regeneration of Blackfriars in the old priory of which he was the benefactor and patron. The original timber for the scissor braced roof trusses that he ordered from the Forest of Dean is still there today. Outside, over the next few years, there will be regeneration worthy of the great city in whose Cathedral Henry was crowned 800 years ago next year. For a long time various attempts to regenerate Blackfriars have failed. This time we will succeed. 

What would you most like to see at Blackfriars? Let me know on richard4gloucester@gmail.com