Bury outlines ‘Town of Hearts’ regen for Whitefield
Reworking Bury New Road, creating a ‘Whitefield Common’, growing little cultural and makers quarters, and enabling active travel are all prominent aspects of a new spatial strategy for the town.
Bury Council is holding a public consultation on the draft Whitefield Town Centre Plan through 16 February.
Prepared by masterplanner Planit, the town centre plan seeks to improve the connectivity in Whitefield, celebrate the community’s history, and make the town greener.
This re-envisioned Whitefield is described as a “Town of Hearts” and focuses on five areas in particular: Bury New Road, Whitefield Common, Little Cultural Quarter, Little Makers Quarter, and the tram stop gateway.
Whitefield Common would be created in the area that includes Pinfold Day Centre, the old town hall, the former library, Uplands Medical Centre, and the land behind bakery Slattery’s. The proposal outlines a vision for new homes, a community green space, and the transformation of the old library into a health centre. The former town hall site also has potential for development, the report notes.
The Little Cultural Quarter comprises the back lanes and streets north of the town. It encompasses the Garrick Theatre. Little Makers Quarter would include the car parking area next to Victoria Park, which would become an event area with space for start-up businesses.
In terms of action plans, Planit suggests focussing on active travel first by improving the existing walking and cycling facilities. New routes would be created from Bury New Road and signage would also be improved. Quick wins proposed include painted cycle lanes on Park Lane, Philips Park Road, and Moss Lane and the creation of a walking route parallel to the A56. Longer-term ambitions include cycle lanes across the town centre and creating new crossing points along Bury New Road.
Other ambitions include creating pocket parks throughout the town, planting more trees, building more efficient car parking hubs, crafting a programme to promote cycling, and having artists paint murals throughout the town.
“Planit’s town centre regeneration strategy challenges the linearity of the existing high street and dominance of road traffic on Bury New Road,” said Caleb Jones, senior urban designer at Planit.
“[The strategy] envisages an attractive and cleaner people-oriented town centre where residents want to spend time and make full use of the Whitefield’s cafes, restaurants, shops and existing assets like the Garrick Theatre and Slattery,” Jones continued. “A second piece of work will follow to tackle the impact of traffic on the users of the town centre.”
Planit director Andy Roberts added: “We’re delighted to see the Whitefield Town Centre Plan coming to fruition with public consultation on Stage 1. We’ve worked closely with Bury Council, engaged members of the Whitefield community and the High Streets Task Force to develop the ‘Town of Hearts’ vision which imagines building a series of new community ‘hearts’ off Bury New Road.”
You can see the full draft strategy and submit your feedback at bury.gov.uk/planning-building-control/regeneration/whitefield-town-centre-plan/whitefield-town-centre-plan-consultation.
Whitefield is definitely untapped. It’s a very affluent suburb which has always had a very mixed centre (some of the places are great, others not so much). There needs to be grants to tidy up some of the buildings and shop fronts on Bury New Road too.
By Observer
Great to see enabling active travel including among the scheme objectives. The status quo does the opposite. Town centres can no longer be designed to be car magnets. As long the short-term paint is a means to claim the space, and then ‘longer-term’ plans for protected lanes doesn’t mean ‘kicking any action into the long grass’.
By Active Travel Trev
I’m all for tidying up the buildings, shop fronts etc, but this scheme will involve pointless and expensive cyclist mega junctions that no-one uses. They’re just a waste of money.
By Anonymous
I agree with Observer. Whitefield is seriously untapped. It has a population but no heart. Bury New Road destroys much of it as it’s so loud and busy and cuts it in half. The tram stop feels a bit like a London station, except without the architecture and unlike London it opens up to a lifeless town centre that these proposals could improve.
What it also could do with is covering the motorway by a green roof that cuts it off from Prestwich.
By EOD
Bury New Road is a busy traffic route between Whitefield, Prestwich, the motorway, giving connectivity to Radcliffe etc. The prescribed remedy for this is a plan that “challenges the linearity of the existing high street and dominance of road traffic on Bury New Road” – the exact specifics of what this means isn’t clear, but it doesn’t leave too much to the imagination that motorists will not be going on their happy way to work or wherever. This is combined with the obligatory transport “hub”, where the motorist’s journey ends.
My problem with all of this is that the public have not asked for or made input to it, whether “consulted” about it afterwards or not.
By Anonymous
The usual bull….and language describing the area,town of hearts etc from a labour run local authority…
By Anonymous
‘Town of Hearts’ does verge on cringe.
The Masterplan looks very promising though.
By Rye&Eggs
@Anonymous (re: motorists) The problem with all this motorists talk is that none of them have anything to do with Whitefield. Almost all of the problems with Whitefield is that priority have been given to people who don’t want to be in Whitefield but pass through as fast as possible. All evidence has shown this is the quickest way to kill an urban area.
Prioritising people who pass through a neighbourhood more won’t solve any problems but just make the area worse
By AndC
Motorists thinking the world revolves around them as per usual
By Anonymous
Where is the money coming from?
By Mike Nelson
I don’t follow the narrative that these wonderful activities and motor travel are mutually exclusive. I am all for people wearing flared trousers and congregating in makeshift parks, but we are presented with the story that these great activities need to take place in the road. Cross the road first, and go into the park. No planters in the road are required.
By Anonymous
What about parking? The rough car park on Pinfold Lane is claimed by Slattery’s employees
By Do Brooks
What will you do about the speed and volume of traffic on Higher Lane?
By Anonymous
What will you do about traffic. Cars use Sefton Street as a cut through.It is already busy with traffic because of the garage and nursery. How are you going to look after these little streets.
By Anonymous
Whitefield fire station already the subject of inefficient redevelopment plans, there are large rooftop areas that could create solar generation, incorporate wind power and create a greener more economic future
By Anonymous
The “quick wins” – all the roads that they propose to put cycle lanes on are the ones where street marking is common during the day – the mysterious line of cars on Moss Lane, cars to the left on Park Lane ect. Taking Victoria Park carpark (wait – isn’t that used a lot by older people to take grandchildren to the park and for their bowling) won’t encourage people into the park. It won’t be possible to go to Philips High School by car to collect a poorly child because there will be no parking near it, if people can’t park on Moss Lane those cars will have to go somewhere – which leaves less parking for customers of the shops on the main road so presumably less custom and more issues parking for residents behind the shops. Slowing the traffic in Whitefield by narrowing will mean all those passing through will use cut throughs – we are encouraged to walk to school and now find the routes to do so are about to be made more dangerous. It will take more time for people living here to commute to work so they may need more childcare. It will be less attractive for people to sit in traffic to visit shops in Whitefield – since Prestwich was done I would not drive there, while for shopping it’s impractical to walk due to weight of goods. We currently have fair wide pavements great for walking, prams and mobility scooters this should not change.
By Ab