St Eds to have another stab at a town centre Masterplan
Tuesday, 27th August 2013.
St Edmundsbury Borough Council is to start work on a new Masterplan for Haverhill Town Centre, less than a decade after they launched one from which little has actually taken place.
Haverhill Area Working Party, known as HAWP, meeting on Thursday, is being told a new process will begin soon to establish what improvements people want to see.
A report to the working party says the Haverhill Vision 2031 document, which is currently out for final consultation, indicates that more detailed work is required on the vision for the development of the town centre and that this will be captured in a Masterplan.
No such plan can be approved until the Vision 2031 process has been completed but the report says many of the issues which generate rigorous debate in the town, such as the High Street and pedestrianisation, cannot be resolved in isolation from the overall vision for the town centre.
This makes an early start on the community engagement and other preparatory work required to develop the Masterplan essential if the council wishes to minimise the gap between the completion of the planning inspection on Haverhill Vision 2031 and the adoption of the Town Centre Masterplan.
Planning officers have apparently been exploring with ONE Haverhill the role that that group might play as it provides a ready-made forum in whichto engage with partners across the leisure, housing, education, voluntary, community and faith groups as well as the two other tiers of local government. They say members of ONE Haverhill interact with a wide range of groups within the community and can bring both that knowledge and access to those groups to the development of the Masterplan.
HAWP will also be at the heart of the St Edmundsbury decision-making process with the Masterplan coming to the Working Party at its draft stage for comment and again after consultation, before working its way up for consideration by the Sustainable Development Working Party, Cabinet and its ultimate adoption by the Council.
A borough council Masterplan for the town centre which included, among many other schemes, moving the bus station to make way for a lake beside Ehringshausen Way, was given a grand launch in 2005, but within a year or two was made redundant by the borough’s surprise deal with Cineworld which led to the unplanned building of the cinema complex and blew a big hole in the new document, since when it has not seen the light of day.
Haverhill Area Working Party, known as HAWP, meeting on Thursday, is being told a new process will begin soon to establish what improvements people want to see.
A report to the working party says the Haverhill Vision 2031 document, which is currently out for final consultation, indicates that more detailed work is required on the vision for the development of the town centre and that this will be captured in a Masterplan.
No such plan can be approved until the Vision 2031 process has been completed but the report says many of the issues which generate rigorous debate in the town, such as the High Street and pedestrianisation, cannot be resolved in isolation from the overall vision for the town centre.
This makes an early start on the community engagement and other preparatory work required to develop the Masterplan essential if the council wishes to minimise the gap between the completion of the planning inspection on Haverhill Vision 2031 and the adoption of the Town Centre Masterplan.
Planning officers have apparently been exploring with ONE Haverhill the role that that group might play as it provides a ready-made forum in whichto engage with partners across the leisure, housing, education, voluntary, community and faith groups as well as the two other tiers of local government. They say members of ONE Haverhill interact with a wide range of groups within the community and can bring both that knowledge and access to those groups to the development of the Masterplan.
HAWP will also be at the heart of the St Edmundsbury decision-making process with the Masterplan coming to the Working Party at its draft stage for comment and again after consultation, before working its way up for consideration by the Sustainable Development Working Party, Cabinet and its ultimate adoption by the Council.
A borough council Masterplan for the town centre which included, among many other schemes, moving the bus station to make way for a lake beside Ehringshausen Way, was given a grand launch in 2005, but within a year or two was made redundant by the borough’s surprise deal with Cineworld which led to the unplanned building of the cinema complex and blew a big hole in the new document, since when it has not seen the light of day.
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