Civic Pride: Keeping this £25m investment plan in the public eye

Better times are coming for our fair city in the shape of a package of projects to be delivered not by Amazon but by the Town Investment Plan (TIP).

It is part of a Government scheme giving up to £25 million to each of 101 towns and cities in England. Peterborough is one of those and for the last six months a group of local people chosen to represent business, the community, the city council and the Combined Authority has been meeting as the Town Deal Board to draw-up a list of projects to bid for approval from the Government.

The TIP bid, sent to the Government at the end of July, asks for funding totalling nearly £25m to support a range of projects. If approved the money will be spent in five key areas.

Riverside Development and Connections

 A foot/cycle bridge over the Nene (see illustration) to provide a link between the city centre and Fletton Quays. Something the civic society has been calling for since 2015. A similar type of bridge over the railway is needed to continue the link to Fletton and Stanground, but this has not been included.

 A masterplan for the Embankment and Middleholme (the large open field to the east of Frank Perkins Parkway). (could include a site for PUFC stadium.)

Visitor Attractions

 The Vine - new library and cultural hub for the city in the TK Maxx (former Woolworth’s) building (see images).

 A National Bronze Age Museum - themed extension to the town museum.

 Lakeside activity/climbing centre at Ferry Meadows.

The Station Quarter

 Improved routes from the train station to the city centre, making this journey easy for visitors and to transform ‘first impressions’ of the city.

 Open up land for the development of new homes and offices.

Enterprise and Skills infrastructure

 An enterprise, training and business incubation hub to support new city businesses and start-ups. Possibly part of the Vine.

 A training centre for green technology skills, aimed towards the construction and automotive sectors.

‘Green City’

 Creating safer, easily accessible routes for pedestrians and cyclists to the train station and city centre and elsewhere.

 Enhancement of public realm and open spaces to support the wellbeing of residents and helping the city to move towards the goal of becoming carbon neutral.

The Government specifies how each local Town Deal Board should be run. The chairman and other members come from local business community and there are city councillors, city and combined authority officers, community and other local bodies. Soon after the first board meeting was held the country went into lockdown which may explain why some of the actions of the board have lacked the expected level of transparency.

Guidance from central Government emphasises the importance of community involvement and input to the plan. The city council received £174,000 of funding to help set up and run the board from Government who stated that this funding will be used for, amongst other things, running business and wider community engagement events.

Local communities should have a meaningful role in decision-making for the future of their town, and Town Deal Boards should draw on the local knowledge and insight. It is expected that this will be achieved by including community representatives from prominent local civic and faith organisations in the governance structure.

This bid has been discussed and presented to government during the most difficult of circumstances – lockdown has been challenging for us all. However, it has sometimes been difficult to interrogate the City Council website to find the relevant documents and so far no versions of the Town Investment Plan (TIP) have appeared on the website.

Let us hope that these documents soon appear so that the general public can better understand not only the processes also but the thinking behind them.

The Civic Society’s own input to the Town Deal Board has been in large part listened to with one notable exception, Westgate House Market Hall idea.

When lockdown gradually eases we have been assured that there will be consultation with a wide range of stakeholders, businesses, voluntary organisations and individuals. Let’s hope that occurs so that Peterborough people feel fully involved in what after all is a major new development for the city.

This involvement is vital if the Peterborough public is to support and embrace what could be very exciting new initiatives.

The chance to contribute your opinions and provide information may not be over as the TIP has to be approved by government and some public engagement is laid down.

We don’t know what form it will take but the Civic Society will do its best to keep the progress of the Town Investment Plan in the public eye.