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Neighbourhood Plan: Town Centre Projects

Section 14 (p72) of the Neighbourhood Plan is dedicated to Town Centre Core Uses and contains policies and aspirations relating to the town centre usage, development and occupation.

Section 16 is dedicated to the Public Realm aimed at improvements for the benefit of users and to provide a more flexible and friendly place to hold and attend events. It also identifies six town centre ‘Key Opportunity Sites’ which at some time could come up for redevelopment and sets a policy to guide any potential development.

Broadway Meadow

Broadway Meadow is one key opportunity site (Page 100, Policy KS6). Situated between the High School and the Leisure Centre it is the largest car park in the town used by commuters into and out of Wilmslow and by visitors looking for day long parking.

The parking problems within the town are well known and the development of Broadway Meadow to extend the number of car parking spaces, perhaps by building a multi-story car park, have been long considered.  The Neighbourhood Plan recognises this area as an important town centre site the value of which is higher than to dedicate it to car parking alone and supports new town centre residences alongside increased parking provision in order to gain maximum benefit from the site.

Representation has been made to Cheshire East and to Wilmslow Town Council to recognise this and the Town Council recently supported expenditure to carry out a feasibility study to look at combining town centre apartments on the site with extended parking space.

The outcome of the study has shown that this proposal could be delivered.

Public Realm

In addition to Broadway Meadows the Council supported a second feasibility study on improving the public realm.

Policy PR1 and Aspiration A6

The WNP identifies the publics’ desire to improve the poor public realm and to address the lack of a destination space within the town centre. In addition, parking is clearly a major ongoing issue that needs to be addressed though a town centre wide strategy, which would include Broadway Meadow.

The public realm areas being addressed in the feasibility study are:

  1. Green Lane/Alderley Road
  2. South Drive
  3. Alderley Road Boulevard

The public realm scope addresses Alderley Road extending from the Coach and Four to the south up to Broadway / Parsonage Green to the north. It will incorporate the potential improvements to South Drive and the new public space adjacent to the library.

This study is ongoing and the output when concluded will be displayed here.