Oldham’s town centre regen: ‘We’re going to make a big difference’

Council Leader Cllr Arooj Shah and Muse managing director Phil Mayall know that people are sceptical of the 15-year development framework they’ve drawn up for the town centre – but they’re ready to prove detractors wrong.

Oldham Council and Muse have teamed up for a £550m transformation of the town centre. The to-do list includes increasing green spaces and building 2,000 homes, many of which should be affordable. Work on a nearly six-acre linear park is already underway. This is helping set the tone for the future of the local authority – one where Oldham is a vibrant, green town.

• Read the development framework

Consultation on the masterplan started last month and runs until 11 September. Feedback has already been received and the joint venture has been making notes. But there remains one big obstacle.

How do you win over a community that has been subject to empty promises time and time again?

A new park features as part of Oldham’s town centre vision. Credit: Our Studio

Actions over words

Shah’s own family members are among those who describe the council’s masterplan as ‘another thing that is never going to happen’.

And she gets it.

“There’s been a legacy and history of announcements that have never seen the light of day, which means that people are naturally quite cynical,” she told Place North West.

“But actually, you only have to walk around the town centre now to see that it is changing, has changed already, and it will keep on changing,” she added later.

She does not take the disbelief to heart, either.

“I’m happy for people to have that view [that nothing will happen] because it’s our job to deliver and change that narrative.

“You can only do that by not words, but actions.”

Like Shah, Mayall grew up in Oldham. A fair bit of cynicism is part of the DNA of the area, he said.

“If you put two Oldhamers together in a room, they’ll moan about the town,” Mayall joked.

“Put two with an external [person], and they’ll beat the external up for moaning about the town.”

That’s because Oldhamers care about their home, he argued. They just like to complain about it too.

“We moan because we’re proud of the place,” Mayall continued. “We’re proud of our heritage.”

It is that sense of pride that Mayall and Shah want to tap into. Mayall emphasized that this masterplan has not been the work of a night, a week, a month – it has been two years in the making. That means two years of talking to the council, working with the community, and finding out what they want the town centre to be.

And one thing is clear. Oldhamers are vocal and not afraid of making their views known. Shah does not mind.

“I think it’s really important for people to tell us and demand actually what they need and what they want to see,” she said.

The word “demand” there is important. In our conversation with Shah and Mayall, it is clear that the two view their framework as being about the community first and foremost.

The citizens of Oldham are at the heart of the process, they argued. Demanding, not asking, only seems right.

Hawkins\Brown has been assisting in crafting designs for a possible future for Oldham town centre. Credit: Our Studio

Upping the consultation game

The key to a successful consultation is conversation. That means sharing information and, crucially, listening.

Muse has been improving its consultation skills over the past few years, Mayall said. The goal is to get more feedback and engage more stakeholders.

The enemy of consultation, he noted, is assumption.

Assuming that a good way to get people to come to a consultation event is to have a craft beer stall and a band. Assuming that people want a market. Or assuming that they want houses that look a certain way or a park that includes a certain type of feature.

Rather than assuming, Mayall said the Muse tactic is to go to the community and say ‘This is where we got to on a project. What do you think?’

It’s not, ‘look what we’ve done’ or ‘look what we’re going to do’.  It is about having an open dialogue from the get-go.

Often people want the impossible, he noted. It is his job to explain why the project is not going in that direction and to find a solution.

Muse has also made a point to go to where the people are and not just hold its own events – although it is also doing that with consultation events on 31 August and 5 September at Spindles Shopping Centre.

Shah joked that Muse project manager Emma Payne is almost like a shadow leader since she appears at all the same community events, whether it’s a world record attempt or a festival.

“Muse is so embedded in Oldham’s community that people actually know who they are,” Shah said.

That quality time spent in the town makes a difference, she added.

“It means that they’ve shown the communities their respect in taking the time to get to learn about them, grow with them, and understand them.

“That’s why this feels not like a normal joint venture. It seems like a really true partnership in that sense,” she said.

The masterplan splits the town centre into five character areas. Credit: via development framework

Thinking about tomorrow

The framework is more than just houses and a new park. It provides guidance for more retail spaces, building on the work already being done to revamp the Spindles Town Square shopping centre. Public realm improvements should help with wayfinding, better connecting pedestrians with the Metrolink and town centre.

Since development happens in phases, the framework includes proposals for meanwhile uses for spaces – such as street market, festival spaces, and car parks.

To bolster sustainability in the town, the masterplan incorporates the Minewater District Network Energy Centre. This is a district heat network that utilises the heat from floodwater in the old coal mines underneath the town to heat a variety of buildings. Plans are also in place for sustainable drainage systems.

Buildings will be reused where suitable, with the council set to explore different uses for the civic centre complex. At this point, keeping the civic centre’s tower is part of the plan, although that could change depending on results of surveys.

Public realm is a large priority as well, with calls for more green spaces and planting throughout the town centre. Snipe Gardens is part of this initiative. Planit is leading on this aspect of the project.

“Wouldn’t it be fantastic If the future of Oldham is actually one of the greenest spaces?” Mayall remarked. Oldham’s past is decidedly industrial, but its future, he argued, could be green.

That also fits in with the country’s ambitions to be more sustainable as a whole. Promoting green spaces goes along with that agenda for the future.

“We’re creating something today that will be relevant tomorrow,” Shah said.

She continued: “It’s not just housing stock. It’s an environment and a community that we’re establishing for people and creating for people so that they can enjoy it and thrive.”

Mayall added: “Housing is one of the inputs. The output is community, aspiration, and pride.”

Shah chimed in that Oldham is taking its cues from city centres rather than town rivals when it comes to regeneration. She is looking at what is going on in Liverpool and Manchester, where footfall has been on an upward trajectory, with 47m and 19m visitors tracked in the year so far, respectively.

She said: “We are going to be the town that breaks the mould, that uses regeneration to transform our town centres in a way so that all these cities have done.”

‘Trust us’

Mayall and Shah acknowledge that right now they are still doing a lot of talking. Such is the nature of still being in the design phase. But they know the public is ready to see work being done.

When asked what message he would send to the community, and the built environment at large, about the project, Mayall said this: “Trust us. Be patient. We’re going to make a big difference.”

Oldham Town Centre Development Framework is the result of a collaboration between Oldham Council, Muse, Hawkins\Brown, and Planit. The project team also includes Turley, Donald Insall Associates, Our Studio, Social Value Portal, CBRE, Arcadis, Max Fordham, WSP, and Civic Engineers.

You can access the framework consultation at oldhamtownliving.co.uk.