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23/09/2009

MP demands voice for residents on City Centre improvements

Picture of update

Roberta Blackman-Woods MP (City of Durham) yesterday (Tuesday 22 September) held a public consultation meeting about City Centre developments.  Roberta arranged and chaired the meeting, which took place in Shakespeare Hall, North Road, in order to give local residents an opportunity to share their views about how they would like to see the City Centre developed as well as concerns about some current proposals directly to council officers.

 

Roberta said,

 

 "I think it's tremendously important to give local people the opportunity to give their views and opinions on the proposed City Centre developments.  That is why I brought Durham County Council officers and representatives from ONE North East to this meeting to hear people's views directly and to engage with the ideas being put forward.

  

"At the meeting we discussed issues around the whole of the City Centre extending to North Road, the Market Place, the old ice-rink Site and Claypath.

  

"The residents had very interesting ideas about how they would like to see these areas developed:

  

"Residents hoped that the old ice-rink site would be a mixed development and one that would provide jobs for local people as well as leisure facilities.  There was a desire for fewer licensed premises on North Road and more speciality shops and cafes on that street and an increase in the number of residential properties in the City, perhaps utilising some of the unused upper levels of commercial properties.

 

"A huge number of people have been in contact with me with concerns about many of the current plans for the City Centre which have been put forward by Durham City Vision, especially in the Market Place.  And I agree with many of those concerns.

 

"We all want to see improvements in the Market Place, but the current plans have not found favour with local people, myself included.  In fact, I have not heard one single resident in favour of the plans.  The proposals are inappropriate for the historic setting of Durham, and the moving of the statue, at enormous cost, is unnecessary.  In particular, the coloured stone seating area, it is widely felt, is not in keeping with the City Centre's heritage.  This is felt just as keenly in the villages at it is in the City Centre areas.

  

"The local residents and I impressed upon they key figures at the meeting the need to go away and look at the Market Place plans again.

  

"I am looking forward to hearing back from the Council in due course about their response to these widely held views.  We are certainly not against the development the City Centre, we just have very strongly-held views that the current plans are not good enough for our City.  Local people deserve to be listened to when it comes to City Centre developments, after all, it is their City Centre."

  

The MP was really pleased that key officers from ONE North East and the County Council attended the meeting.

 

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