Minutes:
The Forum members received a presentation with regards to the Levelling Up fund from Phil Hughes Acting Assistant Director at the Council, along with Simon Machen who is a consultant for the Council, who are both involved with the Future High Street Fund Project in March.
There is another round for the Levelling Up Fund which is round 2 and the Council intends to bid into that and the focus for that will be for Wisbech. The projects will come to fruition over the next couple of months and this will be publicised. Simon Machen explained that work on the bid process has been underway for a couple of months. Phil Hughes explained that three years ago the Government introduced the Future High Street Fund Scheme and Fenland bid into that and was successful in obtaining some seed funding to develop a bid and the Council received £150,000 to spend with consultants to develop a bid which was submitted for £9.5 million and were successful in obtaining £6.47 million along with some match funding from the Combined Authority meaning the whole project is £8.5 million. Phil Hughes explained that the key interventions for the project are transforming Broad Street which is very much car centric currently and not pedestrian focussed, integrating the riverside area with Broad Street and also Market Square improvements which will be quite limited, but the pavement area outside of the Town Hall will be improved and the car park itself will be resurfaced, along with the street furniture and lighting being improved. Phil Hughes explained that there is also funding in place for vacant units and living above the shops, where there are vacant shops currently, a grant can be obtained to those owners to make improvements to them in order to make them more likely to be let. The additional grant will be for the space above the shops, to improve the space, so that it becomes residential. He explained that a new public toilet facility will also be added to Broad Street which will be in place this year as the current toilet block is due to be demolished and the Market Square improvements are due to take place by November, however if there any concerns re possible delays then that work maybe delayed till the new year. Phil Hughes outlined that the Broad Street and riverside changes will take place in 2023.
He referred to the presentation screen and outlined the various changes to be implemented and highlighted the proposed public realm area. Phil Hughes stated that the initial thoughts were that the fountain would not be moved and there would be signalised junction at the top, however when the traffic study was carried out it was decided it would not work given the current amount of traffic that there is in the town centre and the engineers re considered the proposal and it was decided a 17 metre roundabout would be introduced, which they concluded would improve the speed of traffic through the town and should ensure a better traffic flow.
John Maxey asked what will happen to the land being removed which is currently highway and what will it be used for. Simon Machen stated that it will become a pedestrianised area and explained that the thought process was that the centre of a market town should not be a car park with four lanes of traffic and car parking in the middle of it due to the fact that from a pedestrian point of view there were concerns about the dominance of cars in that space and therefore that has been the focus as it also meets the funding criteria for the Future High Street grant. John Maxey asked where people are expected to park, and Simon Machen explained that there are plenty of public parking areas within the town of March. Councillor Mrs Laws asked what will happen to the fountain as the proposal includes the installation of a roundabout and she also asked what will happen to the part of the fountain which had previously been reported as missing but had now been located. Phil Hughes explained that the piece of the fountain will be given to the museum of March.
He pointed out to the forum the preliminary design and there are still further discussions to be had with members following initial feedback and he highlighted that location of the fountain which will be relocated in the public realm as opposed to now where it is surrounded by traffic.
Phil Hughes explained that Broad Street is very much consumed by traffic, which it has to be to some extent as it is one of the two bridges across the river in March and the whole area could not be pedestrianised and there needs to be the allowance of a flow through for traffic .He added that the designers have looked at this and they have identified three different areas, the fountain area, the promenade, and the plaza area at the bottom where there is a lot of public realm area adjacent to the war memorial which will remain in its current position, this will allow a lot more space for pop up shops cafes, community food events and street art. Phil Hughes added that the public toilet will be removed and that area will be opened up completely so that the river area is brought more into the Broad Street environment. Simon Machen stated that part of the drive around the project is for people to be able to enjoy leisure time as currently there is nowhere in Broad Street for people to be able to sit and the café culture is non-existent. He added that the town centre of March, appears to be a hostile environment compared to other town centres and all that can be heard is the noise of traffic. Phil Hughes pointed out that there will only be the removal of 12 car parking spaces from the town centre. John Maxey stated that the roadside car parking spaces along the western side will also be lost. Phil Hughes stated that those spaces are loading and unloading spaces along with a bus stop.
Phil Hughes referred to the artist impression slide and pointed out that two double bus bays have also been incorporated into the proposed scheme on each north and south lane. He added that it is proposed that the public realm area will also be a lot wider than in its current form especially where the current Greggs and Tesco area is. He added that it is still only an artist’s impression, and nothing has been confirmed including the colour schemes of the various aspects, with still a considerable amount of work and decisions to be made.
He advised the forum, that the public toilets and shelter that are being removed will be replaced and sited in Gray’s Lane and will have two accessible unisex toilets and a changing places toilet.
Phil Hughes explained that members are quite keen for the riverside area to have fewer trees as it looks quite congested. David Thomas stated that he has already fed back that one of the unique selling points in his view for the original bid proposals was the connection between the old course of the River Nene and the town centre. He added that the connection between the heritage and the river is key to the success of March for a vibrant town centre and in his view, it could be something to seriously attract people to the town centre, but at the moment in his opinion the connection is not being made by the proposals. Simon Machen stated that in an ideal world he agrees with the comments made by David Thomas, however there is a finite budget to work with and when the bid was submitted the Council was not in the preliminary design stage as the Council could not incur the cost of a detailed design proposal on the basis of speculative bid for grant funding. He added that the Council is trying to do as much as they can with the budget available and the funding Is split across a number of projects which have an independency in terms of the business case and therefore the money does not stretch to that extent of works on the riverside within the budget. David Thomas asked whether what the allowance in the original bid for the works, what it the estimated cost of delivering what the original concept was now and what has been budgeted for the current concept works as the design has been developed. Simon Machen agreed to discuss this further with David Thomas outside of the meeting but agreed that the trees do need to be removed.
Councillor Mrs Laws expressed the opinion that the river connection is very important and added that it is part of March. She added that she appreciates that the finances will only stretch so far and added that with the schemes that are in place for the river corridor, if at a later stage more funding could be obtained, could the works be expanded to allow the waterfront area to be opened up more. Simon Machen stated that it would be difficult, and the conclusion would be a very simplified version of what has been presented to the forum, as it is an engineering solution to the riverbank to try and put ramps and seating into it, which would not be a straightforward exercise. He added that developers are aware that the cost of everything in the development industry has significantly increased over the last two years and some of the initial bid work was based on the costs at the time and obviously the grant has not increased to match inflation since the initial bid was put together.
Tim Slater stated that there are a couple of listed buildings on Broad Street and the fountain is one of them and he asked what the thoughts of Historic England are with regards to the relocation of it. Phil Hughes stated that there is an ongoing discussion with the Conservation Officer and a conservation specialist has been engaged with in terms of its removal and relocation. He added that the Councils Conservation Officer is of the opinion that with regards to the improvement in Broad Street, that it is worth removing it and its new location is still to be decided. Simon Machen added that whilst it is being removed from its current location it is being placed in public realm where it can be more appreciated than it is currently, and preliminary discussions are being held with Historic England.
Martin Williams asked what disabled parking provision is included in the proposal and will be the pedestrian crossing mean that the roundabout will not work in terms of the free flow of traffic. Simon Machen explained that the design work is being led by the County Council Highways Team and their modelling demonstrates that it works and works as a whole better than it currently does. He added that in his experience the vissim modelling scheme which is the method that the highways team are using is generally accurate and he would hope that it does work. Simon Machen agreed to raise the point at the next project team meeting to ensure that there is confidence in place with regards to his question. He added that there is disabled parking provision in Gray’s Lane and two on the riverbank and three round the corner which will remain. Simon Machen stated that taxis and buses have been considered along with disabled parking and loading of vehicles following engagement with those stakeholders. He stated that dedicated cycle lanes cannot be included but the traffic speeds along Broad Street should be quite low along that stretch of road.
Marcel Cooper stated that currently on Broad Street there is covered cycle parking but on the new scheme there does not appear to be any and in his view that should be retained. Phil Hughes stated that has been raised by other officers and there will be some included.
Phil Hughes highlighted on the presentation screen a current mooring point on the river which cannot be used as it is by the pump out station and he explained that it will be opened up and there will be additional mooring capacity as a result of the project within the town and also people will be able to get down to that mooring to interact with the river if they want to as the steps will be open. David Thomas stated that the loss of the pump out facility is controversial in terms of water way users. Phil Hughes stated that Foxes Boat Yard also have a pump out facility which is not that far, and David Thomas explained that the town centre pump out facility differs as the waste goes into the foul network whereas the Foxes facility is taken away by tanker. He added that Foxes Boatyard is also a private facility and if they choose to withdraw their facility that would leave nothing. David Thomas expressed the view that when discussions began regarding the scheme, he was advised that no facilities would be lost. Councillor Mrs Laws stated that she supports the comments made by David Thomas as in her opinion there was no suggestion that this was going to be moved and if Foxes choose to withdraw there is a problem. She asked how many mooring spaces there are at the moment and how many will that figure increase by if the pumping station is lost. Phil Hughes stated that there are currently three platforms, and this is only used for pump out and not or mooring and Simon Machen stated that as part of the bid process the removal of the pump out station was included. He added that the steering group will discuss this issue further.
Phil Hughes added that following the meeting of the steering group, there will be a meeting with the Town Council and then business owners in May as the construction works in the middle of town will have an impact. He explained that he expects the construction works to be phased and therefore the traffic flow of one lane northbound and one lane southbound to remain in operation whilst construction is underway to construct the new road on the eastern side and for that new road to be opened up in order for the public realm works to take place, albeit there will be some disruption.
Phil Hughes stated that the final design works for Broad Street and the Riverside will take another three months of work prior to procurement and construction next year and then this year the design and build for the Market Place improvements will take place, and if there is an issue that these works could be delayed then they will be postponed till January in order that the Christmas Events in December 2022 can still go ahead.
John Maxey whether there is any intention to relocate where the market is held as it is quite an important parking place for the area south of Broad Street. Simon Machen stated that that there is the vision that the traders will naturally migrate to the new public realm area near Barclays.
Councillor Sutton stated that he agrees with the comments made by David Thomas with regards to the riverside area and added that the pump out facility, was only installed 5 or 6 years and to lose that facility is a very poor idea.