Councillors “Please stop and rethink plans for the future of Rawtenstall” 18:30 Wednesday 28/09/16

Following members of the public starting to exercise their rights to ask questions at Full Council and following a request from a Councillor, Rossendale Borough Council have now changed their constitution and created a separate Public Question Time which now requires members of the public to submit their questions in writing by 9:00am two days before and removes the option of the public asking a follow up question.

The first of these new Public Question Times is 6:30pm Wednesday 28th September 2016 at RBC’s offices at Futures Park, Bacup OL13 0BB.

Here is our question calling for a rethink of the current plans for Rawtenstall:

“Good evening, our question is to all Councillors of Rossendale Borough Council and is on behalf of over six hundred (number to be confirmed) people who have so far signed the Friends of Rawtenstall petition calling on you to please stop and rethink the current plans for the bus station and the demolition of large parts of Rawtenstall old Town Hall and Tramway Offices.

The current plans for the bus station were produced before the last ‘Consultation’ was even finished and as such your ‘consultation’ could not of possibly have taken into consideration the feedback of people who took the effort to respond.

Page six of the eight page Chief Executives report “F8. Spinning Point Development Phase 1’ which went to the July Full Council, includes for an agreement to provide Transdev with a designated park and ride facility in the centre of Rawtenstall to take Transdev’s customers out of the borough, something which has not been consulted on and has also attracted severe criticism from the public.

The report of the Chief Executive also contained misleading advice to you including not least that “The Phase 1 scheme has already received planning consent and therefore the risk that the scheme may not proceed should consent be refused has been eliminated.”

In this, we bring to your attention The Planning Notice which includes amongst other conditions, Condition 10:
“The development hereby permitted shall not be commenced, excluding demolition, until a formal stopping up of the highway named North Street (west of Kay Street), part of Lord Street and part of James Street is granted under Section 247 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 shown on the approved plan named ‘Highway adoption and Stopping Up’ 083519-CAP-PW-DR-C-006b Rev I02”. As of today the Secretary of State has not resolved the objections of those who have objected to the Council’s application and as such there remains significant risk that the current plans may not be allowed to proceed.

The plans for the future of Rawtenstall are the most important in generations and will deeply impact on the future of Rawtenstall for generations yet to come. The current plans are deeply unpopular with local people and have attracted severe criticism.

A proper and meaningful consultation needs to start with asking people what their ideas, hopes and aspirations are for Rawtenstall and Rossendale and how they want to see the town developed. It should not start with the approach Rossendale Council has adopted to date which is ‘these are the plans we – Rossendale Borough Council, Barnfield Construction and Together Housing – have developed in private and are what we want to do to Rawtenstall.

Will all Councillors now please stop and rethink the current plans and enter into proper and meaningful consultation with all effected and interested people to establish what their ideas, hopes and aspirations are and allow a future set of plans to be developed for the bus station, traffic management and redevelopment of Rawtenstall as a whole and thus facilitate the successful regeneration of both Rawtenstall and the surrounding Rossendale Valley.”

Members of the public are entitled to attend Public Question Time (and the following Full Council meeting).

If you can attend in person, your support is needed and will be most welcome.

Petition: Please stop and rethink plans for the future of Rawtenstall

 

Mass revolt in Rossendale

  In the normally quiet little Lancashire town of Rawtenstall made famous by the popular folk song Rawtenstall Annual Fair, a mass revolt is underway. Residents, market traders, shop owners, business people, charity workers and former Councillors are all furious and up in arms with the actions of their local Labour led Rossendale Borough Council and their forcing through of plans to demolish Rawtenstall’s cherished old Town Hall and Transport Offices.

They have all come together to form Friends of Rawtenstall in a combined effort to make the Council rethink their plans. In just two weeks they have gained over 700 friends via their facebook page Friends of Rawtenstall. Rossendale Borough Council and their development partner RTB Partnership Limited are intent on forcing through plans to demolish Rawtenstall’s old Town Hall and Transport Offices and replace them with a Lancashire County Council funded metal and glass bus station and offices for Together Housing, who along with Rossendale Borough Council and Barnfield Investments Limited are shareholders in RTB Partnership Limited.     The plans form stage 1 of 3 for a new development called Spinning Point, which locals have dubbed the “Valley Centre Mark II”.

These plans are being forced through despite strong vocal local objections including from the local civic society Rossendale Civic Trust and a very strongly worded five page formal Planning Objection from English Heritage (now Historic England) stating the plans produced by Manchester’s Day Architectural will cause “very serious and unjustified harm to the Conservation Area” and are of “very poor urban design”.

Rawtenstall Town Hall was built in 1875 as an Exchange Club by neighbouring Bacup stock traders, who due to their success wanted a permanent home of the highest standards. In the background is the old Tramway Shed. Whist most of the shed was demolished in the 1960’s, the wall visible in the photo is still stands as do the old Tramway Offices and original stone gate posts on the left hand side of the building.

This photo is also the only known historical photo of the Rawtenstall Annual Fair made famous throughout the world by R.P. Weston and Bert Lee and their popular folk song about a travelling fun fair.

“Just behind the gasworks down in Rawtenstall

That’s a little town in Lancashire

They’d some fun up there, ee they did an all

Last Friday week they had a fair up theer

They had coconuts swings and figure eights Switchback robots and a roundabout

Eeh and everyone said what gradely fun

When the lads and lasses heard the showman shout..”      

c1910 Plan of Rawtenstall Annual Fair held in front of the Town Hall and Transport Offices. The fair offers Rawtenstall a major tourist attraction to develop but what kind of setting will a Valley Centre Mark II make for a traditional fair and folk festival?             King George V and Queen Mary visit Rawtenstall Town Hall 1913.

Following the incorporation of Rawtenstall as a municipal borough in 1891 the building was taken over for use as the Town Hall and in 1910 extended to connect it to the Rawtenstall Corporation Tramway Offices. c1891 map of Rawtenstall showing Tramway Depot and Offices fronting Bacup Road and the original street layout, which RTB Partnership Limited and Day Architectural’s plans will further destroy.

Bank Street Cobbles.   When English Heritage grant funded the reinstatement of cobbles to Rawtenstall’s successful main high street, Bank Street, keeping the old tram sets was a principle requirement they insisted on in order to remind the town of its historic tramway heritage.

Rawtenstall like the rest of Rossendale, is a Heritage Lottery Fund priority area and along with other heritage oriented funding offers millions of pounds in potential funding. But how will Rawtenstall and Rossendale be able to apply for these funding sources when The Leader of the Council Alyson Barnes and the Portfolio Holder for Regeneration, Housing and Tourism Andy MacNae are intent on blatantly ignoring Historic England’s formal objection that the plans will cause “very serious and unjustified harm to the Conservation Area?”     History repeats Fifty years ago, in 1965, much to the anger and dismay of the town’s people the Council insisted on demolishing large parts of the historic stone built town center for a new shopping precinct which was later named the “Valley Centre”.              

(photo credit mrroberwade flickr)

Mr James Lord’s prophesy came true. In 2008 the Valley Centre was used as the setting for the BBC’s science fiction series Survivors depicting life following the extinction of most of the human race.

This is what happens when politicians, architects and town planners get it wrong. Lost generations of depressed lives and wasted opportunities. In 2012 the Labour led Council purchased Valley Center from Ashcroft Properties who subsequently went into liquidation. This purchase was made using £2.1 million pounds of public money earmarked by the former Conservative Council for a new swimming pool in the neighbouring town of Haslingden. Despite a 10,000 named petition from local people to save Haslingden pool the Labour led Council have now closed it.     Under Councillor Alyson Barnes’s “leadership” Rossendale Borough Council then spent a further £500,000 demolishing the Valley Center and tarmacing it for an interim space whilst they decided what to do with the site.

Then in October 2014, Rossendale Borough Council held at very short notice, a “public consultation” for their “final design and location” for stage one of the development; the bus station and offices. This was held on the Thursday and Saturday in the same week it was first advertised in the local paper and on the towns two market days ,when market traders couldn’t attend to discuss the Council’s plans, which also include moving them out of their historic market hall, home to generations of stall holders and developing the market site for social housing to the benefit of RTB Partnership Ltd shareholder Together Housing. Only about 150 people were consulted. 68,000 people live in the Borough of Rossendale. The Friends of Rawtenstall do not believe that consulting only 1% is very democratic. If fact they have major concerns about the whole democratic process of Rossendale Borough Council entering into its partnership with Together Housing and Barnfield Investments Limited.

Even the Labour groups own respected Architect Peter Roberts has resigned as a Councillor in protest to the plans stating he was “disheartened in being a lone voice of opposition to the plans in the Labour group.”   On the 18th March 2015 following a heated debate at the Council’s offices with members of the public, Rossendale Civic Trust, and the Conservative and independent Councillors all opposed to the plans, Labour’s portfolio holder for Regeneration, Housing and Tourism Councillor Andy MacNae proposed with the Labour Leader of the Council Councillor Alyson Barnes seconding, a motion to transfer ownership of the old Town Hall and former Tramway Offices for £80,000, another Council owned office block for £120,000 and a car park for £45,000 and to approve the purchase and transfer of the 1970’s Police Station for £150,000 to RTB Partnership Limited and to delegate all further a powers for negotiation to the Councils Director of Business, a post currently vacant, in consultation with the portfolio holder for Regeneration, Housing and Tourism.

The transfer of these assists for a value totalling £395,000 contrasts sharply with the cost of over £2.6 million for the Valley Centre site.  It is also indicative of a loss of over £1 million pounds in the current value of the Valley Centre site. All Rossendale rate payers’ money. Both Councillors Alyson Barnes and Andy MacNae are directors of RTB Partnership Limted and the Councils newly promoted Chief Executive Stuart Sugarman the Company Secretary.  Whilst the Councillors who are directors of Rossendale Transport saw fit to declare their interests at the start of the Council meeting, neither Councillor Andy MacNae nor Councillor Alyson Barnes declared any interests before proposing, seconding and arguing for the motion.   A century after the members of staff of Rawtenstall Corporation Tramways answered their King and Country’s call and as the rest of the world now poignantly remembers the sacrifices they made, Rossendale Borough Council’s controlling Labour group vote unanimously to dispose and condemn for demolition their old offices and what remains of their depot.

The list of these Councillors names are also now recorded for history.

Councillors; Barbara Ashworth, Alyson Barnes, Caroline Bleakley, Andrea Fletcher, Christine Gill, Steve Hughes, Helen Jackson, Ann Kenyon, Roy Knowles, Christine Lamb, Andy MacNae, Patrick Marriott, Annie McMahon, Jackie Oakes, Marylin Procter, Amanda Robertson, Sean Serridge, Michelle Smith and Robert Wilkinson.  

Following this Council meeting at the Councils new offices at Futures Park, local market trader David Graham felt the need to post on his facebook page ”Rant of the Day: Appalled at the sheer unfeeling and blind arrogance shown at the monthly meeting of Rossendale Borough Council by members who claim to represent the electorate ignoring pleas for caution and more consultation over very contentious plans for the centre of Rawtenstall. I attended council and committee meetings on a regular, professional basis when the first Valley Centre was envisaged – and what happened then has been more than eclipsed by a breathtaking display of biased, blinkered and almost unbelievable decision-making conducted in an unseemly haste for no apparent reason. Those decisions appear to be based on criteria which are questionable at best, with what appears to be a good deal of misinterpretation and supposition in place of solid facts and reliable, expert opinion. And I’m being polite.”   Five days before on the 13^th March 2015 English Heritage (now Historic England) had submitted to Rossendale Borough Council their five page strongly worded formal objection to the plans. Yet this was not made known to Councillors when they voted, despite specific questions being asked by the public and Conservative Members about what English Heritage had to say. The Labour Leader of the Council Alyson Barnes later stating in the local Rossendale Free Press that it was “not the appropriate place to discuss the report”. Why not? Questions need to be answered why the Labour led Lancashire County Council authorized in region of £100,000 to be spent for detailed plans to be produced for the bus station and offices planning application without first consulting English Heritage (now Historic England) only for English Heritage to then issue their five page strongly worded objection once the planning application was formally submitted. Councillor Andy MacNae has also advised that “the funding is specifically from the county transport budget and it for a bus station and so it is not as if we have a choice locally to use it on anything else. It is not money we control”. In which case, what funding is being used for the offices which form part of the proposed bus station for RTB Partnership Limited’s shareholders Together Housing?

Questions also need to be answered as to why the Labour led Lancashire County Council are now insisting on carrying on with the plans despite English Heritage’s (now Historic England) formal objection that the project they are funding will “cause very serious and unjustified harm to the Conservation Area”.

Conservative Leader Councillor Darryl Smith, Parliamentary Candidate Jake Berry and the Rt Hon Patrick McLoughlin Secretary of State for Transport meet with Peter Wood of Friends of Rawtenstall outside Britain’s Last Temperance Bar Fitzpatrick’s, which is displaying one of many “Save our Town” posters in Rawtenstall and give their support to the campaign to STOP Rossendale Borough Council and RTB Partnership Ltd from destroying the old Town Hall for a new bus station and offices. Councillor Smith, “One of the things we have been saying is that the old town hall could be retained as part of the overall development,” “The controlling Labour group has said that they want to see office space as part of the new bus station and we believe that the town hall could provide that, rather than spending £3.5 million on a glass and steel building, which is a lot of money.”

Hustings at Rawtenstall Cricket Club 28^th April 2015.   All of the four Parliamentary Candidates present at the Rawtenstall Cricket Club hustings, Labour’s Will Straw, Green’s Karen Pollard-Rylance, Conservative’s Jake Berry and UKIP’s Clive Balchin have all listened to the towns concerns and are all calling on the Labour led Council to stop and have a meaningful consultation. Councillor Alyson Barnes (centre) in the audience at the hustings. Afterwards she retweeted “British Democracy at its best”. Will she now listen to the people of Rawtenstall and Rossendale, the Friends of Rawtenstall, Rossendale Civic Trust, Historic England and even her own Parliamentary Candidate Will Straw?

One Rawtenstall residents message

Clarence Hoyle’s iconic photo of Rawtenstall from 1950’s, taken from the now Grade II listed Ilex Mill, showing the importance of the Town Hall and former Transport Offices to the setting of Rawtenstall’s Grade II listed buildings: Longholme Chapel, Longolme Chapel Gates and Railings, Queens Arms Hotel, Library, St Mary’s Church and the former United Methodist Church (now St Mary’s Chambers).

English Heritage (now Historic England) “we are extremely concerned about the impact that the development would have on the conservation area. The proposals would make a large gap in a coherent and attractive streetscape, fragmenting the integrity of historic buildings within the conservation area. The development would greatly weaken the continuity of street frontage and sense enclosure on Bacup Road and Lord Street, qualities which are a distinctive component of the local character. The intrusive siting of parking on the street frontages would add to this harmful effect. The pattern of historic streets to the rear, which has already been diluted by previous re-development, would be further diminished. The loss of coherence in the street layout; the poor permeability and circulation proposed around the new building; the resulting “leftover” spaces, with piecemeal planting, limited natural surveillance and poor definition of public and private areas; and the unnecessary dominance of parking within the streetscape, are all indicative of very poor urban design. We are concerned that some of these design failings contributed to the eventual demise of the Valley Shopping Centre. We therefore believe there would be very serious and unjustified harm to the significance of the conservation area.”

The Friends of Rawtenstall want a more sympathetic design for the bus station and in an alternative location so their Town Hall and Transport Offices can be retained for future generations and the town regenerated as a tourist destination in a way which respects and embraces the towns rich heritage from the Industrial Revolution, its connection to the hugely successful heritage East Lancashire Railway and a suitable setting for the towns annual period events, including the 1940’s Weekend, Rawtenstall Annual Fair, 60’s Weekend and Clogs on Cobbles.   The planning Application submitted by RTB Partnership Ltd, originally scheduled to go to the Council’s Development Control meeting on the 24 March 2015 just one day after the mandatory 21 day consultation period, will now go to the Development Control meeting in June, where Rossendale Borough Council Councillors are set to make the final decision the future of our Town Hall and Transport Offices.

The Friends of Rawtenstall are asking people to object to RTB Partnership Limited’s Planning Application and have produced a specimen planning objection which people can use and adapt as they wish. Please help us save our town for the future. Specimen Planning Objection Letter

Dear Mr Stephen Stray – Planning Manager,

Rossendale Borough Council, Futures Park, Newchurch Road, Bacup, OL13 OBB email: stephenstray@rossendalebc.gov.uk

I object to the planning application No 2014/0538 from RTB Partnership Limited to destroy our historic 1875 old Town Hall and its replacement with an unsympathetic metal and glass bus station and offices on the grounds that:

Formal objection from English Heritage (now Historic England) has stated that their plans will cause: ”very serious and unjustified harm to the significance of the Conservation Area”

Rossendale Borough Council’s own Rawtenstall Conservation Area character appraisal identifies the old Town Hall as a “positive unlisted building of high quality” and its demolition would be in direct conflict with the Council’s Core Strategy Policy 16: “Preserving and Enhancing Rossendale’s Built Environment by: Failing to avoid the unnecessary loss of an heritage asset and ensuring that the development respects the distinctive quality of the historic landscape and character of Rossendale and harms the setting listed buildings.

Neither do I believe the application meets the requirements of the Town and County Planning Act 1990 Act which requires that special attention be paid to the desirability of preserving or enhancing conservation areas (s72).

I also object because …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………I therefore ask that you reject this application to allow a proper public consultation with a view to a more sympathetic development which respects and complements Rawtenstall’s lovely old buildings.

Yours Sincerely

Name…………………………………………………. Address …………………………………………………………………………….    

Email ……………………………………………………………………………………………………….