Committee Report: Wigan’s Greenheart - Proposed Regional Park Project

Report to:	Environment Panel
Date:	25 January 2006
Subject:	Wigan’s Greenheart - Proposed Regional Park Project
Report of:	Joint Report of Director of Planning and Regeneration and Chief Executive of Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust
Contact Officer:	Gary Harold - Planning and Regeneration - (01942) 404221 Graham Workman - Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust - (01942) 828906
Purpose / Summary:	To up-date Members on the progress being made on the development of Wigan’s Greenheart Regional Park Project proposal. The project will be implemented through a wide environmental partnership led by the Council and the Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust.
Alternative Options Considered and Reason for Selecting the One Recommended:	Consideration has been given to a joint Regional Park Project based on a strong local partnership between Wigan Council, Salford City Council and others. This would be an extension of the Greenheart concept to incorporate the Bridgewater Canal, the Mosslands and linking into the heart of Salford. Because Wigan’s Greenheart can work as a ‘stand alone’ project, which can extend into Salford in the future, the partner’s consensus was that the merits of the project proposal justified taking it forward within Wigan retaining the option of expansion into other areas in the future. A meeting with Salford is scheduled to discuss this.
Recommendation / Decision:	Members are requested to note the progress to date on the development of Wigan’s Greenheart Regional Park Project. Members are requested to endorse the key aims and objectives set out in the draft outline prospectus issued by the partners and commend it to the Executive Management Team of the Wigan and Culture Trust for their support. Members are requested to support the partners preparation of a Vision Statement, as a first step towards the preparation of a detailed Regional Park Project Plan for submission to the North West Development Agency. Members are also requested to endorse the proposal to seek the support of partners to badge their site-based workers, countryside wardens, site entrance signage, waymarkers, interpretation boards and projects with the Greenheart logo.
Key Decision:	This report does not involve a key decision.
Implications:
Financial:	Printing costs of Vision Statement, from within available resources.
Staffing:	Within available resources.
Policy:	Policy C1G of the Replacement UDP/Regional Planning Guidance/Regional Economic Strategy.
Equal Opportunities - Has a Diversity Impact Assessment been conducted?	No
Wards Affected:	All
Special Interest Members – Which have been consulted	None

Tracking/Process:

Panel	Overview & Scrutiny	Cabinet	Council
	Consultation	Ward Members	Partners
	-	-	Executive Management Team – Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust (Weekly meeting)
Environment – 25.01.06	-	-	-

List of Background Papers in accordance with Section 100D of the Local Government Act, 1972:

Document	Date	File Reference	Place of inspection
Regional Planning Guidance for the North WestRPG 13	March 2003		Planning and Regeneration Department (Policy Team), Civic Buildings, New Market Street, Wigan
Report on Interim Draft Regional Spatial Strategy	October 2005		Planning and Regeneration Department (Policy Team), Civic Buildings, New Market Street, Wigan
Draft Northwest Regional Economic Strategy	November 2005		Planning and Regeneration Department (Policy Team), Civic Buildings, New Market Street, Wigan
Wigan’s Greenheart:An Outline Prospectus	January 2006	15-20	Planning and Regeneration Department., Civic Buildings, New Market Street, Wigan

Proper Officer	Martin Kimber	Rodney Hill
Date	10 January 2006	10 January 2006

1.0 Background

1.1 Wigan’s Greenheart Regional Park Project is an exciting and sustainable environmental improvement and economic development opportunity to transform an area of approximately 15 square kilometres at the heart of Wigan’s former coalfield, into a large-scale recreational resource of regional significance for nature and people. Its core area is bounded by the former mining towns of Wigan, Ashton, Golborne, Leigh and Hindley, and with the communities of Platt Bridge and Abram at its centre. A map of the Greenheart core area is attached as Appendix 1 to this report.

1.2 Greenheart will be regional in scale and significance, an area over one and a half times that of the Amsterdam Bos, one of the first urban forest parks in Europe. Located within the Red Rose Forest and adjoining the Mersey Forest, Greenheart is traversed by some 23 km of canal, together with an extensive network of recreational corridors and greenways linking countryside and historic urban areas with significant new major gateway developments and exciting ecological projects. Entering a new era in Wigan’s history and having to readjust to a changing economic base, Greenheart combines regeneration, environmental, economic, cultural and community priorities in a sustainable countryside setting. The proposed regional park project offers tremendous potential for active and passive recreation virtually on the doorstep of half of Wigan’s 300,000 residents. In addition, it will offer a number of regionally important sports, leisure, cultural and employment opportunities, strategically located as gateways into the Wigan’s Greenheart.

1.3 The evolving concept of Greenheart is to create a national exemplar of how a former coal mining area can become an attractive visitor destination, for recreation, leisure and culture, a haven for wildlife and a sustainable economic springboard for the future.

1.4 Greenheart offers a comprehensive and effective strategic focus for bringing together a wide range of environmental initiatives, policies and programmes, intended to encourage economic prosperity for the people of Wigan in an environmentally sustainable context. A diverse partnership has now been established to take the regional park project forward. These include:

Wigan Council
Red Rose Forest
Forestry Commission
Groundwork Wigan and Chorley
Lancashire Wildlife Trust
Countryside Agency
RSPB
British Trust for Conservation Volunteers
North West Development Agency
Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust

1.5 A draft outline prospectus issued by the partners to the Greenheart Regional Park Project is attached to this report as Appendix 2.

2.0 Proposals

Aims

2.1 The main aims of Wigan’s Greenheart are:

The creation of a Regional Park Project, bringing the countryside to the doorstep of Wigan’s residents, and a gateway to the countryside from the conurbation of Manchester and Salford.
The creation of a sustainable visitor destination that combines canals, woodlands, wetlands, industrial heritage, culture, sporting leisure and commercial attractions in a countryside setting.
The development of a Regional Park Project that will help regenerate the economy, benefit local communities and radically change the image of the area.
To provide local communities with a diverse range of opportunities through the ‘Getting Wigan Active’ programme to improve their overall health and well being.

3.0 Objectives

3.1Greenheart is intended to fulfil a broad range of objectives:

Recreation – To provide a range of indoor, outdoor, formal and informal recreational and sporting opportunities.
Nature Conservation – To protect and enhance the area’s biodiversity.
Accessibility - To make Greenheart’s facilities as accessible as possible to the people of the sub-region and to facilitate travel to and movement within the park by the most sustainable means – on foot, bicycle, boat, horse and public transport.
Restore the Environmental Deficit – To reclaim all derelict land within Greenheart, and improve the environment and manage it to a high standard.
Heritage, Conservation and Interpretation – To conserve the built and industrial heritage, enhance its setting, interpret its significance and market it to the public.
Support Wider Regeneration - To contribute to the physical, economic and community regeneration of the Greenheart sub-region by spreading benefits such as jobs, community development, education and access to a high quality environment and facilities to surrounding communities.
Improve Regional and Local Image – To create an exemplar attraction and to market it to a local, national and international audience, as part of the wider image-building process for the region.

4.0 The Next Steps

4.1 To ensure the success of Greenheart, a wide range of actions will be needed. In particular, the Project Partnership needs to produce a Vision Statement with appropriate technical supporting information to help inform the North West Development Agency’s evolving regional park policy. It may be necessary to engage consultants to undertake some of this work.

4.2 In addition the partnership will, under the Greenheart umbrella:

deliver creative and sustainable solutions;
maximise funding programmes;
engage with local communities;
enhance the biodiversity and recreational value of the area;
change the area’s perceived poor image;
strengthen the links into Salford and Manchester along the Bridgewater Canal Heritage Trail;
work closely with Salford City Council and others to promote the development of a Mersey Basin Regional Park;
feed into the North West Wetlands Initiative being undertaken by Jacobs Babtie on behalf of the Environment Agency and others;
feed into work of Chat Moss Partnership.

4.3 Some limited progress has been achieved to date to develop Greenheart, in the absence of any clear NWDA regional park policy. However, in order to realise its full potential, the proposed Greenheart Regional Park Project will need to secure resources. So, to help provide this impetus, Greenheart is the basis of the Council’s Living Landmarks bid.

4.4 As previously reported to Environment Panel at the meeting held on 28 September 2005, the Big Lottery Fund has invited bids to use Lottery money to make significant and positive changes for communities through its Living Landmarks scheme. This will award a small number of grants of between Â£10 million and Â£25 million to projects of regional significance. Greenheart addresses all the themes and outcomes of the Living Landmarks scheme. In particular:

Community learning and creating opportunity through the creation of learning opportunities, for example in the new college building at Leigh Sports Village and through the creation of major opportunities for employment, leisure and sport.
Promoting community safety and cohesion through the provision of improved routes, including bridges and footpaths across the heart of the Borough and the creation of facilities and initiatives which tackle community cohesion such as work with disaffected young people at Leigh Sports Village.
Promoting well being through the creation of economic opportunities providing jobs and increasing wealth; the creation of a range of new facilities providing increased health opportunities; and physical improvements to the environment creating increased community pride.

5.0 Alternative Options Considered and Reason for the Recommended Option

5.1 Consideration has been given to a joint Regional Park Project based on a strong local partnership between Wigan Council, Salford City Council and others. This would be an extension of the Greenheart concept to incorporate the Bridgewater Canal, the Mosslands and linking into the heart of Salford. However, although there is still the possibility of a joint project, and Salford City strongly endorse the Greenheart concept, their current priority is the development of the Croal – Irwell Regional Park Project, based on a partnership with Bolton and Bury District Councils. Because Wigan’s Greenheart can work as a ‘stand alone’ project, which can extend into Salford in the future, the partner’s consensus was that the merits of the project proposal justified taking it forward.

5.2 However, with the recent commencement of work on the Bridgewater Canal Heritage Trail and the establishment of a Mosslands Partnership, discussions will be taking place in the near future with Salford City Council to explore ways of taking the Greenheart concept into Salford City and beyond.

6.0 Conclusions

6.1 The evolving concept of Greenheart offers a comprehensive and effective strategic focus for bringing together a wide range of environmental initiatives, policies and programmes, intended to encourage economic prosperity for the people of Wigan, in an environmentally sustainable context. Although some progress has been made to date, a stimulus is now needed to secure resources to realise the full potential of this exciting concept. The Council’s Living Landmarks bid, if successful, will provide that momentum.

6.2 In the interim, the Council and the Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust will focus their activities on the Greenheart project area, which covers the Borough’s core countryside. A strategy will be developed to give Greenheart a clear identity, which will ultimately create a sense of place for the regional park project. In particular, a waymarking, signage and interpretation strategy will be adopted by partners, including a badging scheme for all rangers, wardens, project officers and other site workers. This will be a simple, yet cost effective means of establishing the concept of Greenheart as a regional park project in the eyes of the Borough’s residents and visitors alike.

6.3 Thus Greenheart will have two strands, major gateway sites, existing and proposed developments at one level, and low key environmental improvement activities, including signage and interpretation, at another level. Both complementary and contributing to the development of a regional park framework for existing and future regeneration programmes and development opportunities as they arise. Greenheart will provide the context for a more focussed approach to seeking resources from appropriate funding streams.

6.4 The purpose of this report is to seek the Council’s and the Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust’s endorsement and support to develop the Greenheart concept, and take it forward as another strand in Wigan’s overall economic and environmental transformation.

7.0 Recommendation

7.1 Members are requested to note the progress to date on the development of Wigan’s Greenheart Regional Park Project.

7.2 Members are requested to endorse the key aims and objectives set out in the draft outline prospectus issued by the partners.

7.3 Members are requested to support the partners preparation of a Vision Statement, as a first step towards the preparation of a detailed Regional Park Project Plan for submission to the North West Development Agency.

7.4 Members are also requested to endorse the proposal to seek the support of partners to badge their site-based workers, countryside wardens, site entrance signage, waymarkers, interpretation boards and projects with the Greenheart logo.

Appendices

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