Prestwich Regeneration Consultation
WRPW is pleased to see that amongst the ambitions in the 'Your Prestwich' brochure Bury Council and Muse have said they want "A people first approach that promotes more active and outdoor lifestyles, through new public spaces with walking and cycling routes" and "Strengthening Prestwich's green transport infrastructure to be safe, accessible and well connected". We can't stress how important we feel that the development needs more than well intentioned words! We have already been involved in a workshop with the developers and expect further involvement. As well as the development itself we want to see parallel commitments to improvements in Prestwich wide connectivity for walking and cycling. We are preparing a consultation document focussing more on the transport issues than the proposed built environment to be submitted by 19 March 2023. If you would like to join our working group please get in touch with us at [email protected] Bury New Road Crossing Times Walk Ride Greater Manchester has issued a 'Call to Action' for putting pedestrians first at crossings (https://walkridegm.org.uk/2023/01/15/call-to-action-lets-put-pedestrians-first-at-crossings/). Already there has been some success in Stretford, Chorlton and Levenshulme. We wrote to the Greater Manchester Urban Traffic Control Unit to see if something can be done to improve the frustrating and long wait times at the five crossings on Bury New Road between M&S and St Mary's Road. They wrote back after contacting Bury Council. We are delighted to report that adjustments have now been made at the crossings outside the Cancer Research shop and the Methodist Church. We'll keep checking on them, and on the one by St Mary's Road. The two crossings either side of the Fairfax Road junction are linked to the timing of the traffic signals and apparently can't be easily modified. M60 Simister Island - National Highways opportunity for better walking and cycling routes National Highways (formerly Highways England) has a very expensive scheme to build new infrastructure to "reduce delays" at M60 Junction 18, Simister Island. They are consulting on the plans from Wednesday 15 February to Tuesday 28 March 2023 (https://nationalhighways.co.uk/our-roads/north-west/m60-junction-18-simister-island-interchange/). We are engaging with them in webinars and will be responding to their consultation - there are a lot of re-routing temporary closures of footpaths proposed. We believe NH can do a lot for better walking and cycling routes either as part of the scheme or under their Designated Funds and put together these ideas: https://walkridepw.weebly.com/uploads/1/8/5/2/18527728/wrpw_m60_and_simister_ideas.pdf . The cost would be small change compared with the planned £300million of road building! One thing that should be done without delay is to sort out the muddy Haweswater Underpass that is part of the path between Parrenthorn and Unsworth. We are calling on all prospective councillors from all parties in Holyrood, Besses and Unsworth wards in the May Council elections to support this. Whittaker Lane closure The top end of Whittaker Lane by the shops is to be closed for three months for telecoms work. It will be interesting to see what the effect on traffic will be, and if it does show that ideas contained in the now dropped Heaton Park Active neighbourhood would actually work and not cause the chaos its opponents claimed it would.
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The consultation on two options for the Heaton Park Active Neighbourhood closed on 20 March 2022. This is our response to TfGM, Bury Council and Sustrans (who are organising the consultation):
"Walk Ride Prestwich & Whitefield (WRPW) wish to record our strong support for all the measures set out in Option 2 of the March 2022 Heaton Park Active Neighbourhood Consultation. The draft plan says "Any implementation is likely to be undertaken on a temporary (trial) basis initially". Therefore we see no reason to leave out any of the proposals and certainly not to default to the weaker Option 1 proposals. We trust you agree it is really important to try all of the Option 2 proposals, evaluate their success and not shy away from making positive moves towards a better public realm with high standard, safe pedestrian and cycle facilities. We also want to see the Active Neighbourhood to be a high quality implementation to LTN 1/20 standards, nothing less. We feel we have to stress this as currently at the Bury New Road/ Kings Road/George Street junction Bury Council, whilst commendably positively improving pedestrian crossing facilities, is falling short for cyclists with unimaginative 'paint the road' cycle markings. It is even looking as though the Council is taking out some of the delineated cycle lane! For the Heaton Park Active Neighbourhood we want to see safe interfaces at Bury Old Road, Heywood Road and Scholes Lane junctions for all pavement and road users. The Active Neighbourhood ethos should be clear around the boundaries and capable of expanding one day. We are really pleased to see Heys Road identified as an enhanced walking route. WRPW would like to see future work to continue it as an east-west pedestrian and cycle friendly low-vehicular traffic route towards Prestwich centre to tie up with the regeneration of the Longfield and on to the Clough. There are a lot of good ideas in Option 2, we hope to see them in place soon, and for more of this type of thinking across Prestwich and Whitefield!" A new and exciting campaign
We met with Bury Climate Action to begin our work on a new joint campaign. We hope to launch the campaign the beginning of next year. Funds We have been looking at different funds to support our work, and future activities and campaigns. New hire bikes in Greater Manchester Nick got a sneak peek of Greater Manchester’s new bike-hire scheme which is launched 18 November 2021. Check out Nick’s review here: https://nickhubble.bike/2021/11/05/on-the-new-gm-bike-hire-scheme-a-sneak-peek/ Bike repairs Martin ran another Dr Bike session fixing bikes at the Phoenix Centre at St Mary's Park in Prestwich. Come along to our next meeting if you would like to get involved in campaigns, fixing bikes, applying for funding, have new ideas or just want to hear more about what we do. Our next meeting is at The Ostrich on Tue 16 November 2021 at 7.30pm: ttps://www.joseph-holt.com/pubs/ostrich Dear friends, First of all – thank you to everyone who came to see us at Clough Day last month. This year's theme was "My 20-minute Prestwich", where we gathered scores of great ideas on how walking and cycling can be at the heart of a regenerated Prestwich. The attached word cloud gives you a good idea of the suggestions made by the good folk of Prestwich, and we're also in the process of compiling a report on the exercise to present to Bury Council as the project goes into the design phase. And excitingly – we're planning more events! 1) For those who want to see provision for safer cycling in our area, we have joined forces with Bury Climate Action to host an "infrastructure safari" – a leisurely cycle ride to and on various new, exciting active travel schemes in Salford, Manchester and Trafford to experience "in the wild" the kind of active travel schemes we urgently need to see more of in Bury. We're meeting at Prestwich Pizza Express at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday 25 September and the ride should take around 3-4 hours. More details and registration here: https://www.facebook.com/events/959381521285299/ or here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cycling-infrastructure-safari-tickets-172032191917 2) Save the date! On Monday 11 October we cordially invite you to our first open meeting since before the pandemic. We'll be at the Phoenix Centre from 7:00-9:00 p.m. to showcase the work we've been doing and explore with you ways of having an even greater impact advocating active travel in our community. Further details are in planning and will follow shortly. Thanks as ever for your interest! We trust you are all well, and please forgive the recent radio silence! Since the onset of the pandemic our activities have focused more on behind-the-scenes lobbying of councillors and other key decision-makers, but now, as the situation appears to be relaxing, we're raring to re-engage with the community to make Prestwich & Whitefield the best place for walking, cycling & wheeling in the Borough.
For our first public event of the new era, we will be at this year's Clough Day 2021 from noon on Sunday 22 August! Find our stall for a chat and information about projects such as: - Prestwich regeneration and the 20-minute village - School streets & pacifying the school run - Heaton Park active neighbourhood - Simister Island junction project & active travel - How to make active travel accessible to all! Also: if anyone is willing to volunteer any time to help us hand out leaflets & stickers and chat to visitors to the stall at Clough Day on Sunday, we'd be very grateful for your help! Simply reply to this mail or drop us a line on Facebook or Twitter! We're also working towards a larger public meeting on matters of active travel in the local area, which will take place in September or early October, and we would welcome your attendance and creative input on that occasion. Watch this space for further details. Hope to see you soon! The WalkRide Prestwich & Whitefield team
Present at the meeting:
Digest version:
Full notes of the meeting...On Tuesday 26 February at 7pm a group of local residents met at the Church Inn, Prestwich, to brainstorm future activities and outreach work for the Walk Ride Prestwich & Whitefield chapter. More news on events, campaigns, and work to follow, but for now check out these photos and see how hard at work we all were....
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