Agenda item

The Head of North Worcestershire Economic Development and Regeneration (NWEDR) presented the report in respect of the Bromsgrove 2040 Vision. In doing so the following was highlighted for Members’ attention:

·       This was a Town Development Strategy in order to strengthen vitality within the Town.

·       Five major unused or underused sites had been identified to attract people to the Town Centre.

·       The strategy sought to identify how people moved in and out of the Town Centre, including the use of the railway station. Members were informed that a review of planned public realm interventions would be undertaken to improve connections across the town centre, with the intention to create an improved sense of continuity and cohesion.

·       It was hoped that the strategy would encourage different uses of the Town Centre, other than retail, to increase vibrancy and footfall.

Following consideration of the report, Members felt that the wording of the recommendation was appropriate and that to ‘endorse’ this vision ‘in principle’ reflected that the strategy was one part of a bigger picture. 

Some Members raised that historically there had been issues experienced within connectivity from the railway station and that there was not adequate parking within the Town Centre. It was suggested that if the car parks identified within the report were to be used for other activities as suggested this would further impact on the availability of car parking spaces. It was confirmed that work would be undertaken in order to look at schemes, such as the bus request scheme already in place within the Town. It was important that these kind of schemes were increased in order to provide better connectivity.

There was a brief discussion regarding the future of the Stourbridge Road carpark however due to the ongoing Planning Application on this site it was not appropriate to comment on this further during this meeting.

 Members were informed that this was an aspirational high level document with regards to the future of the Town Centre and that work would continue to secure future funding, including from the now disbanded Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership (GBSLEP) in order to build on the vision in the future.

At this point in the meeting, a typographical error was identified within the report, regarding the possibility of accessing funding from the GBSLEP. Members noted that within the report it stated that there was £78m worth of funding available, however it was confirmed that this should state as follows:

‘The Council must also assess how it will access over £1.5m of funding available through the now disbanded GBSLEP and possibly a further £7.8m of funding.’

Members were keen to understand whether the responses to the public consultation on the Market Hall site had been geographically spread across the whole of the District. Officers explained that there had been a variety of responses to the consultation and that the stakeholder and resident events had been very well attended. However, the detail of the number of responses from each Ward within the District was not available.

Cabinet felt it was important to keep residents engaged in this process and it was important to demonstrate successful projects when they were completed. In response to this Members queried the timescale of the vision, stating that it spanned across a long period of time. Some Members felt that it would not be ideal to identify a site for redevelopment which would then be unused until later in the timeline of the vision. In addition to this it was raised that detail on whether the sites highlighted within the report had been identified for long, medium or short term development. Once again, it was reiterated that the vision was high level strategy, with the catalyst for the vision being the receipt of the £14.6 Levelling Up Funding and redevelopment of the Market Hall site.

RESOLVED that the Bromsgrove 2040 Strategy be endorsed in principle and that officers bring forward proposals for key development sites.