DEVELOPERS Countryside have spelled out details of the 500-home riverside development they are to build at Centre Park, Warrington.
As reported by Warrington-Worldwide on March 5, planning chiefs have given the go-ahead for the mixed-tenure development, which will be named Rivers Edge.
It will comprise 413 two, three and four-bedroom houses and 100 apartments, 10 per cent of which will be allocated for affordable housing through a registered partner.
Rivers Edge will mark a major investment by the developer in the town, which is also home to both Countryside offices and their modular panel factory.
The 38.7 acre development site borders the River Mersey and will provide commuters with a short, 10-minute walk to Bank Quay station.
Many homes will front on to the River Mersey.
As part of its agreement with the borough council, Countryside has pledged to invest £100,000 in local health services and contribute £300,000 towards transport and education.
The first homes are expected to be available for sale later this summer.
Countryside managing director in Cheshire West and Merseyside Mark Hadfield said: “It’s very exciting for our business to be creating a new development near our office and modular panel factory in Warrington. This investment represents much more than just homes; our aim is to significantly contribute to the local economy and create opportunities for employment and training alongside our supply chain partners.
“We’re very proud of our track record in building high quality and sustainable communities across Merseyside and beyond, and we achieve this by working in such close partnership with housing associations, local authorities and private rental sector organisations that together make up our Partnerships Model.
“By working closely with our partners, and by listening to the community, we will ensure Rivers Edge’s new homes not only meet the incredibly high standards that we set for ourselves, but those of its residents too.”
12 Comments
No mention of the flood plain defences – how are the homes going go be protected?
Sadly this 513 home development will not have a single shop, café, community centre, church, clinic, surgery or school. The green space offered comprises two area of grass with toys one with an electricity sub-station.
The Council’s ‘Opening up the Mersey’ aspiration. Is ‘met’ by a riverside footpath and cycle track.
Other than standard modern houses no attempt is being made to make this a good place to live or to build a community here. This is a complete failure of place making.
I very much hope that the developers and the Council will reconsider the opportunity this area offers to put down a marker for what sort of town Warrington wants to be. I would have hoped for more.
It isn’t as though Countryside don’t know how to build exciting novel and vibrant waterside communities. They have done so in many parts of the South. Doesn’t Warrington deserve better than this?
I think people might respond as to the reasons why Warrington is different, Bob, but then just get shouted down as ‘keyboard warriors’. Including by you.
Amen to those sentiments Mark. We all have lost count of the number of times reasonable people have asked pertinent justified questions politely of those who claim to serve the communities in this borough and safeguard their interests, only to be fobbed off with vague answers or given the equally unconvincing “commercial confidentiality” response. A response which increasingly seems more designed to protect reputations than safeguard privileged information.
I believe those who uncovered the saga of the shredded planning documents, were labelled “conspiracy theorists” by councillors, whilst they were fighting their corner.
This is what Countryside are offering Rochester.
https://www.countrysideproperties.com/sites/default/files/brochures/2021-01/Rochester%20Riverside%20Host%20Brochure.pdf
Why aren’t we getting an equivalent commitment to placemaking and community building in Warrington?
You tells us Bob. Why is Warrington different?
Hi Mark
I will only complain about ‘keyboard warriors’ when unfounded, untrue, deceptive or defamatory material is put about about me or my political rivals in any party. I welcome honest debate.
In my opinion we have this very uninspiring proposal for a key part of the town because the current administration didn’t fight hard enough for a better more imaginative proposal from Countryside that could have created vibrant new neighbourhoods with a real sense of community and place, rather than a bland 500 home housing estate.
When we were in control we had very robust discussions with developers, we demanded better, and usually got it.
Nobody at the council welcomes honest debate Bob. If people are making defamatory comments, then that should stop. What Russ Bowden is doing is attempting to stop any pushback or questioning from residents. Just look at how quick The Guardian is to shut down comments on its website rather than deleting anything libellous and banning the people responsible. Check out how difficult it is for people to get simple answers to FOI requests. I think everybody should be uncomfortable at Cllr Bowden’s casual use of the police on a couple of occasions. If people have threatened him, then fair enough, but I really don’t think that happened.
Thank you for your last response. Confirms what many of us believe and is the source of most of the criticism aimed at the council. I don’t think the silly comments about ‘brown envelopes’ are worth wasting time on, but there is a problem of influence.
Bob
Some simple arithmetic suggests none of this adds up. Based on average house prices in Warrington, the revenue from this development will be maybe £113 million. In return the developer appears to be investing £400,000 into the town, which I assume is down to section 106 notice. Only 10 percent of the housing is affordable. It’s reasonable to assume based on past experience that the final proportion might be lower.
In addition, access to this development site is only possible because £20 million of public money has been spent on the Centre Park Link.
With all this in mind, the developer is being asked to do almost nothing in return, and people are perfectly entitled to ask what is going on with this kind of thing. Mr Bowden in particular is now extremely fond of calling this kind of perfectly reasonable questioning harassment and referring to the people asking the questions ‘keyboard warriors’ or at least lumping them in with people making daft comments on social media.
The last thing Warrington needs is an opposition party going down the same route which, with all due respect, you are.
Thanks Mark. I am afraid you are right about shutting down debate, that, unfortunately is what arrogant one-party controlled councils do.
Warrington Labour have used their super-majority of 2/3 of the Council to move from elections by thirds, where the public could express their opinion at the ballot box, three years in four, to all out elections every four years. There has been an extra year this time because of Covid.
Council meetings are controlled to minimise debate and what questions can be asked about.
There is no proper scrutiny. When we were in charge all Cabinet Members had to go before the scrutiny committee to answer questions about their programme and policies.
FOI requests are often unreasonably delayed and the Council has had to be reprimanded by the Information Commissioner for delays in releasing the Leader’s emails.
The Leader behaves in an autocratic way as though he were the elected executive mayor. The cabinet simply rubber stamps policies and decisions that come almost entirely from officers. The rest of the Council doesn’t get much of a look-in. The “Policy Committees” are no such thing, they are just talking shops to allow back benchers to be briefed by officers.
Unfortunately much of the more aggressive criticism from some members of the public, even when it isn’t libellous is way off the mark. The officers work very hard to run an efficient council, but having lost more than half of its funding, there is almost no choice left about what can be done and bringing in a balanced budget is ever harder.
Not entirely surprisingly there is a conspiracy of silence about what has been, or will have to be cut.
That is why we voted against the budget. It wasn’t that we could have done it differently, it was because it was opaque and no Council member can get a real overview of what is being done.
I could go on but this isn’t the place.
However what I am most critical of is the lack of leadership about how the town should develop. All the parties are against building on the green belt and that is happening only because central government is demanding a rate of building that cannot be fully met only using brownfield sites. However, what matters is the quality of what we are building, the nature of the places we will be creating and the opportunities for communities to thrive there.
When we ran the town, for only 5 years we laid many of the foundations of what has been done since. The town needs new ideas, a more open Council and a better conversation with the people of Warrington.
We won’t get that if we re-elect a Labour one-party state for the next three years,
I agree. The council needs a shake up and this housing estate (that’s all it is regardless of the headline) shows why.
The sooner the local elections revert to their original format where sections of the council are up for re-election in the intervening years, the better. We were “sold” the current version of election frequency on the grounds of cost saving by an administration that has and still intends to significantly increase Warrington’s debt! Moreover, it persistently refuses to provide those at risk for the debt – council taxpayers – with reasonable answers on the structure and repayment implications of the debt arising from the council leader’s investment strategy.