Cllr Graham Turner, Portfolio holder, introduced the agenda item, advising that the appended report, outlines progress on small town centres. There are four town centres being concentrated on with the possibility of a fifth, looking longer term at Marsden in light of some funding that has been received. There has been a lot of work to get to this stage and some are more advanced than others and some have been more challenging, however progress is being made. Some extra funding has been levered in to help deliver these, with the cost pressures, the external funding has to be welcomed.
Simon Taylor, Head of Town Centres Programmes advise the Panel that in summary, it is four towns, Batley, Cleckheaton, Heckmondwike and Holmfirth, four continuous engagement programmes and four projects to get off the ground. This programme is the council trying to strengthen local centres, recognising those are important places for people to live, work and do business. It is an important program that is being expanded to include a fifth centre, Marsden. The Panel was given a breakdown on the progress being made in each of the centres.
In
summary;
Batley
Batley has been overtaken by a levelling up process and in many ways it is one of the success stories of starting to develop plans and programs in a particular area. Without the initial work that had been carried out, around local centres, the levelling up bids in round two would have been weak. It has gone from a small allocation of £2.5 million and that has been increased to £14.38 million, which is a great achievement and work is on with developing that.
In terms of the process undertaken in Batley, place standard exercises were carried out early, which was used to inform the master planning process. Some extra work had also been carried out in Batley as there was some extra funding, and this gave a clear idea of what people were wanting around their town centre. This information was fed into the masterplan, and engagement on that was undertaken last year.
In terms of
Batley, the programme is concentrating on Commercial St, which is
the main street that runs through the middle of Batley, and also
looking at how to improve Marketplace.
Cleckheaton
Cleckheaton was one of the programs that got off the ground
quickly. A scrutiny session was held
early this year, at the end of the master plan program, and then
followed an almost identical process to Batley. One place standards engagement was held
using the ward councillors as key reference points, and now there is a completed master plan and a
number of key schemes that ward councillors and communities want to
be delivered. The schemes identified
for development and delivery include Savoy Square and Market,
Spen Bottom and Market
Square.
Heckmondwike
Heckmondwike is slightly behind the others, and is just at the end of the masterplan consultation period, which ended on the 19th June 2023, and the team are examining all those results. A number of projects were put forward in that plan, Greenside Public Realm, which is around a potential road closure to the top side of Greenside to bring the park closer to properties and to the bus station. Examining the results from the consultation to see whether or not the place standards exercise was right, and see what the public think of some of those ideas.
There is other funding going into Heckmondwike that comes from West Yorkshire Combined Authority. Heckmondwike bus station will get delivered this year and there is almost £5 million going into that project. There are some other works on the A638 corridor which are around traffic management in the town centre. The hope is that Heckmondwike, once we get through this next phase, will have some very clear projects that will be delivered.
Holmfirth
Holmfirth has been a programme of works for a number of years, that started with the Holmfirth access plan, which is close to being delivered. Since then, a more generic and town wide plan has been wrapped around that. An additional, £1.5m has been put in on top of the Holmfirth access plan and that is for projects that will complement the town and also complement that particular scheme.
A number of these
town centre schemes have secured UK SPF funding so that these
projects can be developed rather than using Council
capital. The place standard exercise
has been carried out and the master plan consultation has also been
undertaken. The master plan has been completed which has been
signed off by the portfolio holders.
Aside from the access plan, there are three key projects that the
community are pointing us towards. One
is to look at Towngate, one is looking at access along the river
and another is small scale transport projects including gateways
into the town and park and stride.
The main project is the access scheme, and the indicative start date for that is September 2023, and it is an 18 month building programme.
There is now a fifth that has been added to the original four small centres and that is Marsden.
Marsden
Marsden has been included for a number of reasons; one is successful levelling up fund bid at the back end of last year. The other is around the impending Transpennine route upgrade works, and that will particularly affect Marsden station and the land around there and some recent investment into the cycle path between Slaithwaite and Marsden.
The Marsden
levelling up fund bid is the key factor, effectively there will be
almost £20m going into a derelict mill at the very heart of
the town centre. The funding from
levelling up is the gap funding, valued at almost £6m, the
rest of that will come from the private sector.
The mill covers a large proportion of the town and conservation
area, and the work will be quite impactful. It is a commercial project, largely office space
workshops, some retail with some potential for
residential. Long term, the project is
being run by the landowners and a developer partner, but ultimately
it is a significant change for
Marsden.
The intention of
adding it to the list, is to ensure that there was some other plans
for the rest of the town to complement that. Cabinet have now agreed to move forward on a
master plan in Marsden and that work will start quite
quickly.
RESOLVED
That Simon Taylor be thanked for providing an update on the Small Centres programme.