The first conversation on Your Prestwich closed in March 2023 and we’ve been blown away by the response. Nearly 900 people completed our questionnaire with hundreds of people coming along to our drop-in, workshop and online Q&A. A massive thank you to everyone that took part.
We received loads of great feedback, ideas and suggestions, which has been fed into the design process.
Here’s some of the main things you told us:
– Continuing to involve the Prestwich community, especially young people, is really important to help shape the plans;
– The plans need to celebrate and reflect Prestwich’s unique heritage and strong sense of community;
– The new buildings need to take design inspiration from existing Prestwich architecture and be of a high-quality;
– You love your local independent businesses and the scheme should prioritise spaces which enable them to grow and flourish;
– Some people questioned whether we had the right mix of housing, retail and community space;
– Sustainability and enhancing the village environment is really important and you’re interested in how we plan to create an eco-friendly scheme that will stand the test of time;
– You have some concerns about traffic, congestion and parking in the village centre and want to know how we’ll manage this;
– There was a mix of views on the type of housing needed in the village, with affordable homes, housing suitable for first-time buyers and apartments being the most popular suggestions.
– You had lots of great ideas for the community hub with a desire that it caters for all ages.
– You’d like to see green outdoor spaces with lots of planting and trees.
You can find more detail about the conversation feedback in our summary report here.
Over the coming weeks our team will be using the conversation feedback to help work up detailed plans for the regeneration of the Longfield Centre. We’ll then plan to hold another community conversation later in the year before we submit a planning application to Bury Council. This will show how we’ve responded to all the feedback and how this has helped to shape the plans.
To keep up to date on the project you can sign up here. You can also follow us on social media @YourPrestwich.