Im getting very excited for the creation of the new shopping area in Stoke, today will see some big news released about key anchor tenants…

in the meantime check out http://www.citysentral.co.uk/ to find out more!

I went along to the first lecture presented by The Sentinel from our ex mayor Mike Wolfe at the Mitchell Arts Centre last week to see what he had to say. Being an ex mayor and all i thought i might learn something from his address or get an insight into another view point from someone whose name certainly carries some weight….I must say i was pretty disappointed.

A few key points stood out for me…

• Flatten an area of the city centre and cover it in tarmac to create a unique open space for public events.

This is so low aspirational it risks making our city a laughing stock, as we are on the verge of starting phase one of our city centre public realm scheme, Mike Wolfe would be happy with a large tarmacced open space. Im sorry but when a festival/concert/something not happening this space would be pretty drab and dull…Tarmac is hardly fun. Another question is why would we need an area so large when he already proclaims we need another 50k residents to hit our critical mass.

• The putting down of the 6 towns and disrespect given to them by calling them “Things”.

I myself might not be a massive supporter of holding onto the past and advocate embracing the future of the city centre but i woudl not disrespect the more senior members of the community by calling these towns “Things” in jest or not. To many the 6 towns represent heritage and uniqueness and while they may not last in their present form for the next 50 years i would have used more tact.

• The disbelief that the East West shopping centre will ever happen.

It is happening and i cant wait to see it! It will let us make our city feel like a city, attract more spending in our local economy, help to recycle money through local jobs and the removal of the need for trendy 25-40 year olds jetting off to the trafford centre every weekend to grab a pizza express and shop in Allsaints. In fact i think there will be a very important announcement this week…..

• The disbelief that the bus station will become what is planned.

The building has started and i cannot wait to see it amount the ring road improvements, the new signage celebrating the ceramics industry and fire station and tesco ect ect ect….

• The offer of his help to the Chief Executive of the council to help get the city sorted.

Surely the leader of the council and his experienced cabinet can help, why would we need a man who talked with such low aspirations and negativity? Negativity does not breed positivity and that is what the city needs right now.

To be fair i did find one thing he said interesting about giving the derelict housing to local people and builders to regenerate. Not a bad idea but i could imagine it quickly turning into a nightmare and isnt the idea to move with the times and concentrate on working with housebuilders through gap funding and support to raise the quality of housing stock?

Anyway who am i to question Mike Wolfe and his ideas? I wish that they had been more positive….

I hope he comes back to do another in 4 years time after the next election perhaps and we will see who was right, hopefully we can do it in the same place at the mitchell arts centre. I might even grab some food and catch a movie afterwards at the East West….lol

Dear Residents,

I am in the process together with local people and residents associations of investigating the chemical smells we are having in the Smallthorne area that seem to be coming from the Sneyd Hill industrial estate. Please call me if you too experience these smells as we are trying to build up evidence to present to the environment agency about where we believe they are coming from.

Please contact me 07810825600 or email matt.wilcox@stoke.gov.uk

Please follow the link below for more info on the story.

Lets hope justice can be done for this terrible crime.

http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/Man-appear-court-accused-killing-swans-Ford-Green/story-13246583-detail/story.html

After the disappointment of missing out on an LEP in the area i came across another thing we have been overlooked for this morning,

http://www.cypnow.co.uk/Social_Care/article/1087515/councils-share-6m-intensive-support-fund/?DCMP=EMC-CONInCare

Are we being left out of many Government schemes that would no doubt help our disadvantaged communities and address our local social problems? Is this political? Why despite being one of the most deprived areas of the UK are we being overlooked or having schemes cut and withdrawn? Has anyone else spotted anything else that we have missed out on?

This week saw me chair my first ever overview and scrutiny committee for city renewal. Having spent alot of time recently researching, learning and preparing for this task i was excited at the prospect of taking forward this committee in scrutinising our city’s regeneration.

City renewal is probably the most important factor in Stoke’s evolution through physical building regeneration, jobs, employment and skills – things that i am quite passionate about and things that i know are on the verge of happening…The new city centre, bus station, fire stations, city centre improvements to roads, jobs and skills employment intervention programmes and the new central business district. All of these things will combine to make our city a better place to live and i want to be involved in making sure they happen in the best possible way!

Our first agenda item was around the local transport plan, the most important point for me is that research tells us that 60% currently travel by car. If we are trying to drive forward jobs and raise aspirational levels which im sure will include cars then what will happen to the roads that are already congested with more road users?

The second item was around executive housing, houses with a value over £400k a rarity in stoke on trent and something that is being put forward for us to look into. I was saddened to see myself a victim of constructive journalism in the sentinel the following day where it stated that i was not impressed with this. Actually my first impressions were negative however when looking at the bigger picture if it costs us nothing as a council to explore it then lets get exploring! The journalist had just written the first thing i had said and not included the other 95% of my generally supportive message!

The local enterprise zone was then dealt with simply for information only and we asked for information to be provided at the next meeting.

Our work programme selected to begin our first task and finish group with the city council’s relationship with the theatres and how this could be better managed or arranged.

The following day i was upset to hear Mike Barnes raising in full council the fact that 4 documents were missing from the meeting, This saddened me as i had put alot of hard work and effort into this meeting. The claim he makes is also incorrect..

Firstly there could possibly only be 3 documents…

• Minutes of the informal meeting – Something which keeps being brought up as if something wrong is going on? A totally crazy comment when this was simply a preperation meeting to run more efficiently throughout the year. We did not scrutinise anything we merely arranged some topics for the work programme and minutes for this meeting would not be for him as a member of the public.

• Plans of executive housing locations – Not for public documents as this is still in its feasability stage and no formal arrangements have been made.

• Details of our membership of industrial communities alliance – This was brought forward by an officer with a view to saving over £10,000 from our membership of an outside body that we are unsure of the benefits in exchange for membership. I asked for a briefing note so we could make a decision as to our membership but the information even though requested would not be available for a couple of weeks (This itself leads me to question the validity of our membership if the organisation we pay a substantial amount of money to cannot respond promptly)…

So in reality the only document could actually be this one and i only brought it forward because i thought we could be more efficient as the membership is up for renewal soon….

Anyway im looking forward to the next one and all the exciting things in the pipeline in terms of city regeneration!

Residents and motorists are being advised of resurfacing works taking place on Ford Green Road this weekend.

As a part of the highway improvements that are already in progress on Ford Green Road, resurfacing work on the approach lanes to the “puffin” crossing is to be carried out.

To minimise disruption the works will take place on Sunday 26 June 2011 between 7:30am and 6:00pm. Ford Green Road will be closed to traffic at these times between Croft Court and Ashman Street in both directions. Traffic diversions will be in operation and traffic will be returned to normal after 6:00pm on Sunday. There will still be local access to properties.

Councillor Adrian Knapper, cabinet member for transport and planning, said: “This is part of a series of ongoing works to improve Ford Green Road.

A hot topic in stoke for the past few years is its regeneration and now i am the chair of the overview and scrutiny committee for city renewal i thought readers of this site might find my views interesting on how i see past, present and future regeneration impacting on our community.

Having grown up outside of the city in a suburb of london called Harrow, my childhood actually witnessed this area turn itself into a place with a pretty good city centre. When my family first moved there there was no city centre shopping centre just a high street with poor roads and dirty old bus station. Soon after moving here the first shopping centre opened “St Anns” in 1987 by princess diana, i was actually present and gave her a bunch of flowers as part of a school trip! Shortly after the local roads were improved, public art installed (A bronze statue of a skipping girl called “Katie” that was stolen once or twice and no doubt scrapped!) a new bus station came soon enough and then the icing on the cake was a second shopping complex called “St Georges” that was focussed more around entertainment with a central cinema, food court and gym. Why am i telling you about the regeneration of somewhere 150 miles away with a totally different demographic? Because to me it is similar to the story of stoke and where our city centre  is going but i have already seen this happen somewhere else and seen the benefits to that community.

We in Stoke have an advantage though, We have a very cool and modern ring road with even more improvements on its way. We have a spanking new fire station that looks amazing, We have the YMCA that is having a multi million pound facelift, We have the Mitchell memorial theatre with its ultra modern look and of course the new tescos that sits prominently along the ring road. We have a new bus station on its way, the east west (our version of Harrow’s St Georges centre) precinct on its way in the next 2 years and planning permission granted for the central business district.

The other side of the ring road we have modern housing estates coming together although at a slower rate of build that expected (credit crunch, recession and housing market demand impacted)…For me the East West precinct and Business district are the most important things we will do in the next couple of years as a city.

New Business District –> More jobs, higher working aspirations for local people, Influx of other workers into the city contributing to our local economy, More people in city centre post work recycling local money into local places such as restaurants, entertainment, theatres and bars.

East west Precinct –> Too many people work in stoke but spend their money in other cities. A major factor in sustaining ourselves as a city involves what i call “Recycling” of local money. For example you no longer go to the Trafford centre for an evening to shop, eat and go to the cinema because stoke has nothing for you but low aspirational shops in the potteries centre and a poor selection of restaurants. Instead you go to the ultra modern East west precinct where we will have a better quality of shopping, a modern cinema complex and better restaurants all in one place. That money you earnt locally gets ploughed back into local jobs and local people. Ok the bigger profits may go to a company based elsewhere but at least we are creating sustainable employment for the masses and jobs that even the most disadvantaged can do like cleaning, serving or customer service.

New residential developments –> Workers from the central business district will want city centre accomodation, canal side contempory living and realise that investing in city centre property should in line with other city’s always reap better rewards. Also local work again for local tradesmen, joiners and plumbers then of course window cleaners and gardeners long term.

So thats the physical side of things what about the people? We as a city have problems with worklessness which go hand in hand with family values, aspirational levels and outlooks on work. At any one time we have up to 20-25% on some sort of benefit and looking for work, yes some of these are hardcore non workers but alot are also eager looking for an opportunity to shine. We as a city have regenerated our working culture from a city of industry to a city of logistics and call centres something which i dont think has been easy but never the less i think has been pretty well done. We need to drive forward with this and encourage more employers to the city to take advantage of our potential enterprise zone and fantastic buildings such as the eco friendly logistics centre in Talke and modern business district. I know the council get critized for not bringing about enough inward investment but i think they actually do a good job and the officers that are left after the job losses are good people who are committed and work hard.

So thats my take on the key factors of local city regeneration, it focusses on our city centre as once we crack this the rest will follow and of course lets not forget all the other things that are going on  including the potential local enterprise zone down at Shelton bar and the continued development at Trentham lakes.

Lets be take a look at what has been achieved in the next 4 years and then comment on how we as a council have performed.

I would be interested to hear about any comments you may have on this blog email me matt.wilcox@stoke.gov.uk or tweet me @mattwilcoxstoke

As part of the councils cost cutting and finance raising that it has had to do to help combat the cuts that have been imposed by central government the issue of charging for parking at Fenton Manor and Dimensions has been raised. This was originally brought forward to the economic development committee that i sat on last year and through scrutiny by myself and others it was delayed until this year actually coming into force at the start of June.

As part of my scrutiny within the committee and also individually through discussions with council officers i raised the following points…

• Have we thought through the impact this will have on users of the facilities? The football pitches at Dimensions, the gymnastics at Fenton Manor, the swimmers, the gym users and other patrons. What if people are that annoyed with the charges that they join other local private facilities such as private gyms and places like goals and Power league.

• Is this not a double increase? Having already been faced with price rises on things like football pitches we are being punished twice for using the facilities sometimes for as little as an hour. For example a typical game at dimensions will cost someone £3 then another 25% to park on the car park and if they forget then its a £30 fine!

• What is the impact going to be on the local roads that people will use to avoid the charges, Scotia road is a busy road already with its parking problems especially on match days at vale. More parking congestion, more frustration to local residents who cant park outside their own house and more road traffic accidents.

Some of the responses that came back include…

• We can raise a substantial figure from introduction of car parking charges.

• Some of this will be used as part of the sports development plan of the city improving local football pitches and other sporting facilities.

I should probably at this point declare an interest being as i do play football at dimensions on a regular basis, my son plays there twice a week and he lives just yards away on scotia road. but im less concerned about how the charges will effect me im more concerned about the older chaps those who are 40, 50 sometimes even nearly 60! who come for a kick about once a week in an informal way with a group of lads. For these this is possibly the only form of exercise and enjoyment they actually get each week as they hang on to their youthfulness and ability to play the game they love and have loved probably since the age of 5!

Im also concerned about the safety of my children on scotia road and by Dimensions due to the increases in congestion. My kids often play unsupervised with their friends in and around dimensions, the road which will see a big increase that runs parallel to Scotia road (its name escapes me but could be Barber street) has cars parked close together with the possibility of kids running out high. If drivers are searching around looking for car parking spaces frustrated because they have realised and have got to pay and running late for their game then the danger of a kid getting knocked over will be far greater.

While i back and support council officers in making changes which they believe will generate more income for the council and applaude innovation in this instance i predict the following -

• A decrease in usage at Fenton Manor & Dimensions and more business to private companies such as Total Fitness, Goals & Power league who do not charge for parking and their prices are not to different to our policy.

• A decrease on our residents partaking in general physical activity and all the wider social benefits that brings to our community.

• A decrease on financial profits that Dimensions and Fenton manor generates through less traffic and the profits it makes through its cafe ect.

• A decrease in road safety, an increase in congestion and anger from residents on this matter.

To close i hope im wrong, i hope we can make lots of profits that can be ploughed back into improving sports facilities and no child is hurt by a road accident. I hope the officers have got this one right but will be asking for figures over the next 6 months to track the stats month on month and against last year, that way if we have got it wrong we can change our strategy quickly!

There is of course one way to make this money and not effect all users…Introduce £5 parking for vale games, the money we would make on 24 games a year would come pretty close to how much dimensions would make all year. This idea was discounted by the officers however despite me thinking its a pretty good one, in fact why dont we do it aswell if we are going to bring in charges we may aswell do it properly!

Id be interested to hear of your opinions email me matt.wilcox@stoke.gov.uk or tweet me @mattwilcoxstoke

Update – 8 June 2011

Interestingly this article featured in the sentinel just days after charges were introduced….

http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/Netball-team-cut-short-tournament-avoid-parking/story-12732006-detail/story.html