Prestwich Village Neighbourhood Forum would like to thank Bury Council, Muse, Planit-IE, Jon Matthews Architects and Font Communications for sharing a lot of their forward thinking and to all those people in Prestwich supporting the Forum.
We would encourage all residents to watch the video of the Q&A session when it is made available online as it is definitely worth watching to see the enthusiasm of the people involved and the thought process behind the proposed designs – they also share a number of slides showing the regeneration from different angles.
Feedback on the session:
Following on from the fantastically well attended Drop In session at Prestwich Library on Sunday 29th January, where it was great to see our Councillors, representatives from Muse (the developers) and from Font Communications (the company managing the feedback sessions) the conversation on the redevelopment plans for Prestwich Village continued with an online Q&A Webinar.
The webinar was chaired by the Communications Director from Font, and a panel answering “typed“ questions from the attendees.
The panel consisted of Cllr O’Brien (Bury MBC Leader); Paul Lakin (Exec. Director, BuryMBC); Project Director, Stuart Rogers from Muse; in addition to Lindsay Humblett from urban designers Planit-IE and architect John Crellin from Jon Matthews Architects.
Approximately 120 people joined the webinar. It lasted 2 hrs, with the first hour being a presentation on the proposed masterplan and the second hour saw the panel answering the online-submitted questions from the attendees.
In such a short amount of time, its never easy to get all questions answered but the event seemed very well organised and hopefully they will have recorded all the questions for consideration.
We have tried to capture a few of the key takeaways from the webinar are and they are presented below in hopefully an unbiased way:
- More green spaces in the village area and the boundary will be central to the redevelopment.
- Creation of a number of ‘Gateways’ to invite people into the regenerated centre of Prestwich
- De-engineering of Rectory Lane to reduce traffic flows, pollution and improve road safety. A pedestrianised area outside St Mary’s CofE School is proposed.
- Developing housing with “front doors” will be built acknowledging the local heritage on Rectory Lane – this is to reclaim the village as mixed retail and residential environment.
- The historical Village Streets will be re- established along the original lines eg: Poppythorne Lane.
- The council leader gave a commitment that the village will not have a replication of the Radius apartments, as it is essential that there is a sense of community and on reflection the Radius complex never appears to feel part of the village community.
- The issue of car-parking spaces and the need to promote cycling and walking was raised, notwithstanding, the need for parking facilities for drivers with disabilities will be provided. The intention would be to retain free parking but this would require a detailed assessment of peak usage times etc.
- The split between housing and retail hasn’t been decided yet, but the need to retain independent retailers was considered to be important but there has been no decisions taken relating to future rents.
The Q&A session was recorded and will be shared – details will follow.
There will be Community Workshops to attend in the next few weeks for further consultation with the public and business owners so please do register on Your Prestwich, details will be issued soon.
Please leave your comments on the redevelopment plans on this Prestwich Village Neighbourhood Forum website – in our feedback facility and we will collate the responses and submit to BMBC.
IT IS IMPORTANT TO HAVE YOUR SAY
so please complete the online questionnaire at www.yourprestwich.com or fill in the freepost questionnaire in the newsletter that has been delivered to your homes/ businesses. Write to ‘Freepost HAVE YOUR SAY’ (no further address or stamp needed).
Please complete your questionnaires by 17 March 2023 when the first phase closes.
Following this current pre-consultation phase, the plans will be worked up in more detail and consulted on again in the Summer before them being submitted as a planning application to Bury Council in the Autumn.
The interest in the regeneration of the village centre is fantastic and long overdue. The steps that the JV are taking to engage with the community are positive, but is is essential that hard to reach groups are also targeted to ensure broad and comprehensive feedback.
It has been many years since the Council last consulted on village regeneration (the 2009 masterplan), Given the time and events that have passed since 2009, there are understandably many issues that residents want to discuss directly with the Council. It is imperative that the Council ups its game in terms of engagement with the community. We shouldn’t have to rely on development proposals and a JV partner to trigger these discussions.