Agenda item

To receive an update from the Director of Director of Growth & Enterprise including

specific reference to Lyceum Square.

Peter Skates, the Director of Growth & Enterprise attended the virtual meeting and gave a verbal update on Royal Arcade.  He advised that demolition was progressing with no issues and that the programme was on schedule.  Pre-application discussions were ongoing with the developer and planning colleagues and the proposal was to produce a timetable of engagement with stakeholders, Members and the Board in due course.  The suggestion to utilise hoardings on the construction site in order to promote the branding was welcomed. 

Work on the market hall was continuing and many members of the Board had undertaken a site visit.  The opening of the hall was dependent on the situation in respect of lockdown.  With regard to the bus station it was anticipated that by the end of the following week the handover from Arriva to the Council of the bus station would be completed and the demolition of the sheds should commence sometime in February.

With respect to Lyceum Square, Adam Knight reported Cheshire East Council had undertaken a competitive tender process to appoint an urban architect.  Through the process he advised Gillespie’s, an independent landscaping architectural design practice had been appointed.  A pre-implementation meeting had taken before Christmas and it was hoped initial visuals would be available shortly.

Jez Goodman, the Development & Regeneration Delivery Manager gave a verbal update on the Future High Streets Fund.  He explained that last Summer, Cheshire East Council had put forward a business case to MHCLG for up to £20,000,000 worth of funding for ten projects in Crewe town centre.  On 26 December, MHCLG announced the Council had been allocated £14.1m ‘in principle’ from its Future High Streets Fund to support town centre regeneration in Crewe. 

In making this award ‘in principle’, MHCLG had now introduced an additional stage in the process, which required Cheshire East Council to determine how it wished to allocate the funding across the projects contained in its original submission.  MHCLG had advised that the deliverability of projects should be the key determinant.  Given that an announcement was originally expected to be made last summer, and that all grant funding must be spent by 31 March 2024, the ability of a project to be delivered within this tighter timeframe was the main consideration.  Engagement would take place with project leads to test the deliverability and analyse any projects that could be amended or scaled down.

MHCLG now required Cheshire East Council to provide revised plans by 26 February 2021 but had encouraged an earlier response.  It was suggested that a briefing note on this matter could be circulated to the Board to provide further background information and at the next meeting he would provide an update to the Board in respect of timescales and so forth.

Dr Mullan MP felt the Board should wait for the later date to respond the MCHLG and be given the opportunity to input into the projects to ensure there was cohesion between the TIP projects and the Future High Street Fund projects.  Officers agreed that this request could be accommodated as long as the was sufficient time to respond to the deadlines.

RESOLVED

That the update be noted.