Kidsgrove investment plans put forward

Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council is supporting moves by the Kidsgrove Town Deal Board to reallocate money for a range of improvement projects.

Proposals include creating small enterprise units, a learning centre open to the community, improvements to the canal pathways, and upgrading surroundings in several streets in the town centre area.

Simon Tagg, Leader of Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council, which is a member of the Town Deal Board, said:

Town Deal funding has already delivered a range of projects across the town, improvements that make a practical difference to people’s lives and their enjoyment of Kidsgrove.
 

The new proposals are intended to have the same effect, helping residents and businesses take a step forward.”

Town Deal funding has already helped reopen the leisure centre, create a Pump Track in Newchapel and provide the new artificial sports pitches at the King’s Academy. It has transformed Chatterley Valley West from an unusable post-industrial site to a business park which will house hundreds of new and safeguarded jobs and is being used to improve the link between the canal and the town centre.

The next phase could include:

• three enterprise units for small business at The Meadows;
• creating a community learning centre at the Kings Academy;
• expanding work already underway linking the Trent & Mersey Canal to the town centre by also improving towpaths and linking to the Kings Academy;
• improving the roads and public realm around the Meadows Road and Station Road area, and the Market Street, The Avenue and Heathcote Street.

Cllr Tagg has recently expressed concern that the long-term future of Town Deal upgrades to Kidsgrove may be thrown into doubt.

The threat of subsidence caused by decades of coal-mining is delaying plans to improve the train station, build a transport interchange and parking for 200 cars.

The Kidsgrove Town Deal Board is being told by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government not to commission exploratory work to discover the extent of the subsidence unless it thinks it has enough money to carry out the remedial work.

But the Town Deal Board doesn’t know until it begins the work how much a restoration programme would cost – and only has a fixed budget to work with.

Cllr Tagg has written to Kidsgrove MP David Williams asking him to use the power of his office to intervene with Department for Transport, Network Rail and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to ensure funding is still in place.