‘Halton Together Panel’

 

Themed meeting – Urban Renewal

 

Friday 11th June 2004

At Sefton House, Runcorn

 

Present

Glenice Bagley – Halton Carers Umbrella Group, Norman Paul Lloyd – Streets Ahead, Alison Bowen – North West Division Girlguiding, J Maguire – Halton T&R Federation, Sharon Petersen – Halton Happy Hearts

 

In Attendance

D East – HVA,  K Marcroft – LSP, Matt Atherton – LSP, Pat Audoire

 

General background

 

Karen Marcroft did not repeat the general background as this had been done in the W&E meeting.

 

Urban Renewal

 

The overall aims for urban renewal are to transform the physical fabric and infrastructure, restoring derelict sites and creating a vibrant Borough that makes Halton a place where people are proud to live and see a promising future for themselves and their families.

 

Modern day Halton has inherited an exceptional legacy of dereliction and contamination that undermines the development potential and attractiveness of the area.  Putting this right is a key to greater prosperity and boosting the image of the Borough.

 

The key objectives of Urban Renewal can be found in the Community Strategy for Halton document which was submitted to the group.

 

To tackle these objectives, the Urban Renewal SSP has drawn up a programme of activity for the next few years.  Substantial funding from the European Union and the UK Government will help fund many of the initiatives.  Many of the planned activities will carry on past the lifetime of the current plan as they involve major infrastructure projects which aim to change the face of the Borough and create a stronger economy.

 

Work under the Urban Renewal priority addresses Government floor targets in relation to regional economic performance, housing decency, and enterprise.

 

Pat Audoire said that as she has only been in post for 2 weeks she has arranged that she will take everybody’s questions away and get back to them with the answers.

 

Questions

 

¨      Why are there no toilet facilities in areas which are supported to be safe to use?  This needs to be sorted out and has been made a point of.

 

¨      Area forums need to be advertised better.  Pat said she would look into this.

 

¨      The Heritage Lottery fund, are they already on any of the projects?  Not at the moment.  There is a project in Castlefields which is trying to get them involved and also the Town Park Project as well.  Wigg Island did get some funding from them.

 

¨      Does this include projects that have currently run out of funding?  Can it help finish them off?  Going through Safe and Attractive neighbourhoods SSP.

 

¨      What about more safety ramps outside schools?  Everything has been stopped for a while whilst opinion sways one way or the another.  At the moment there is an equal number of people for and against the idea of more ramps.