CONTROVERSIAL plans to build a £40 million student village right next to the historic Le Mans Crescent have been met with widespread opposition from campaigners, councillors and the town's civic trust.

When the ambitious plans were announced last month, critics pounced on everything from the initial designs for the accommodation, to its location in the town and whether it was even needed at all.

The letters page of The Bolton News has been inundated with correspondence lambasting the proposals.

The proposed development, if approved, would be created in Cheadle Square, behind the arches of Le Mans Crescent, with the university aiming to create an environment and atmosphere similar to the one "town and gown" feel experienced by students at Cambridge University.

The development will house up to 850 students and will replace the university’s existing halls — Orlando Village in Thynne Street, and The Hollins in Radcliffe Road — which provide 700 single bedrooms.

There have been several petitions launched calling for a rethink on the issue —and both the university and the council say that the proposals are in their early stages and that a proper consultation will take place.

The university's plan is one of three controversial town centre applications in recent months which have divided opinion.

The £6.5 million revamp of the Albert Halls could see a ground floor cafe open out into an outdoor seating terrace on Victoria Square, while a separate high end restaurant and bar would be open to visitors and theatre goers in the afternoons and evenings.

And a £3 million transformation of Newport Street — with the plan being to turn it into a "European-style boulevard" — has also met with opposition.

The charity canopy has already been pulled down and trees have been ripped up to make way for repaving of the run-down street.

The Bolton News is speaking to the key players on both sides of the debate on all three projects — but here we will look at the university's plans.

We have split the debate into four key areas of discussion. Critics have blasted the plans because of their impact on the heritage of Le Mans Crescent and have also criticised the aesthetics of the modern design.

They also say there are other better locations in the town centre and have questioned whether there is a real need for the new halls.

HERITAGE

THE heritage of Le Mans Crescent looms large over the University of Bolton's plans to build student digs on Cheadle Square.

The crescent, the town hall and the rest of the civic centre is regarded as one of the finest of a collection of early 20th century creations by Bolton architects Bradshaw Gass and Hope.

Such is the impressive nature of the crescent that it has been chosen as a location for a number of television programmes including the popular BBC shows Peaky Blinders and Last Tango in Halifax.

The listed building is also home to the central library and museum as well as housing the borough’s magistrates court.

Richard Shirres, chairman of the Bolton and District Civic Trust, said: “The three-arch portal within the crescent is the only such structure within the town and from the civic centre it can provide an important revealing access to the west.”

Mr Shirres referred to a draft town centre plan created by Graeme Shankland in 1964.

He added: “That plan saw the portal also as a demarcation between the Civic Centre and possible green space to the north and west.

"Emphatically, it should not be barricaded off by monolithic nondescript blocks. Neither too should Cheadle Square be captured as a student enclave.”

Stuart Whittle, chairman of the Horwich Heritage Society, added: “What doesn't seem to have got through is the point that the open vista of the crescent has been protected for over 80 years and is a critical element in our fast-disappearing town centre heritage. In fact the council has a statutory duty to preserve the context of this listed building.”

Council leader Cllr Cliff Morris said he believes there has been a degree of misunderstanding of the plans and the vision the council has.

He said: “People seem to think we will be doing something with the crescent — we are only talking about the bit at the back of it.

“At the back we currently have three car parks and a little bit of green space — we are looking at how that can be best used.

“Some people are acting like we are going to pull the crescent down and that is obviously not the case.

“We are all very aware that this is a listed building and obviously we want to keep it.”

The authority’s director of development and regeneration, Keith Davies said heritage was a crucial part of the plans going forward.

He said: “We met with the developers and they are very keen that as the application continues, there will be people involved with a strong record of making decisions that take into account the heritage aspects of the design.

“The very things that people are concerned about are the things that we want to utilise, like the heritage. Those are things we want to maximise.”

The university has insisted that English Heritage will be involved in a “rigorous planning process" and that this will be open to scrutiny from councillors.

DESIGN

SOME of the most impassioned arguments against the student village plans have been a direct reaction to an artist’s impression of what the development could look like, which we printed along with the original story in February.

Bolton Council leader Cllr Cliff Morris said he was surprised by the level of reaction, particularly when it was made clear that plans were at an early stage.

He said: “People should wait to see what it is going to look like — nothing is set in stone.

“Another myth we have heard is that people think the accommodation will be just square boxes. These will be proper apartments — the days of square boxes are over.”

Prof George Holmes added: “We are very keen that this will look appropriate for a historic university building, that it links with the history of the town centre and that it gives that sense of quality and permanence that Le Mans Crescent has. We do not want a concrete jungle.

“The reason we want to do this is to delight students and their families when they come to Bolton for an open day — they will have perhaps seen one of our courses that interests them and they want to live somewhere that exceeds their expectations — not just a box.”

One email received by The Bolton News compared the look of the proposed design with HM Forrest Bank prison in Swinton.

And a petition, set up by Craig Rotherham of the Friends of Cheadle Square, has received more than 800 signatures.

Mr Rotherham described the initial drawings as “a monstrosity”.

He added: “We know the council doesn't employ urban designers, architects or conservation officers anymore but please please find someone who can redesign this monstrosity before it turns into a planning application and ruins what's left of our town centre.

“This is a listed building and a vital part of Bolton town centre's heritage, the splendour of which should not be obscured by an ill-judged attempt at urban regeneration.”

Architect Mark Head, from Egerton, added said: “The sorry position we see unfolding today, in the proposals for the student village, in utterly obscuring such grand and august architecture, not to mention a civic vista gateway of triumphant proportions in the triple archway, is nothing short of Philistine in the worst possible context.”

Prof Holmes said he appreciates that people are concerned about new development, but said it was important to note that critics' views were not entirely representative of the wider Bolton public.

He said: “Whenever there is a new development we can expect people to have both negative and positive views and those views must form part of the process.

“It is important that those views are listened to but it is also important that they are not taken out of context or are disproportionate in terms of the whole population.”

LOCATION

MANY critics of the University of Bolton's proposals for a new £40 million student accommodation block have questioned the planned location.

The view is that Bolton Council and the university should have considered different sites for the student village, with the most favourable location being the soon-to-be defunct bus station in Blackhorse Street.

However, council leader Cllr Cliff Morris said that the bus station already forms part of the development plans adding that people should “wait and see” before commenting.

He said: “What people don’t know is that about half of the bus station site will be incorporated into the development.

“That is being done because we need that bigger space for the spread of the buildings and particularly if we want to get some nice green areas involved as well.”

Chairman of the Horwich Heritage Society Stuart Whittle, who has written to The Bolton News about the plans, said: "We need to persuade the council and university that this site is inappropriate at this early stage so that other avenues can be explored.

“The people of Bolton do indeed welcome the proposed £40 million investment in the university and the extra vitality it will bring to the town — but why does it have to be in Cheadle Square?”

However, development and regeneration chief Keith Davies says that the idea of building on Cheadle Square is not a new one and that the site has been earmarked for development for a decade.

He said that the location of Cheadle Square was vital geographically in linking the university with the civic centre.

He said: “This has for a long time been a big part of the plan to transform the town centre and we pointed that out in our framework back in 2005.

“Spatially, we want to connect the university to the town centre, so while other sights might have been looked at, we said 10 years ago that this area needs to be developed to make that town centre link to the university.

“A lot of other sites are in private ownership but this is something that we have in our own hands.”

Conservative councillor John Walsh, who sits on the council's planning committee has already spoken out against the plans.

He has now suggested a different idea — involving bringing more green space into the town centre.

He said: “The vision that Lord Leverhulme had was a grand plan to bring Queens Park through to the town centre and we could go part way towards doing that if we worked from Bolton Lads and Girls Club, through the corner of Moor Lane where there are some pretty poor quality shops.

“If we then improved the court building, we could create green swathes leading to the centre.

“Building in the civic centre will limit the prospect of that vision ever being carried out.”

Mr Whittle has backed Cllr Walsh's call for a civic park and has produced a provisional design of how it could look.

NEED

ONE of a number of petitions set up in protest at the University of Bolton's plans was created by campaigner Eric Hyland, who says there is no need for more student accommodation.

The Bolton and District Civic Trust has also criticised the loss of green space in the town centre.

Mr Hyland, who has been collecting signatures in Cheadle Square, said: “The last thing Bolton needs is more student accommodation.

“Occupancy of existing student accommodation isn’t 100 per cent and some projects in Bolton that would have added more student accommodation have been abandoned.

“I would also like to know what will happen to the existing accommodation.”

The Civic Trust is currently putting together a vision statement on green infrastructure in the town centre, arguing that only a tiny fraction of the town centre is give over to green space, with most of that falling in and around Cheadle Square.

Richard Shirres, chair of the trust, said: “Cheadle Square, with its wonderful backdrop of Le Mans Crescent, deserves to be improved upon.

"As a place to pause, in transit between Bolton Market and the town centre.

"The square should be designed for all the community, perhaps enhanced by small parkland to the north. The square and the crescent are for the whole of the community and future town planning should reflect that.”

However, the need for new student accommodation, the university believes, is vital.

Vice Chancellor Prof George Holmes said: "The development of a new residential village for the university in this town is critical.

“We want to expand national recruitment. We do exceptionally well locally, with applications up 25 per cent on last year.

"But to accommodate that growth we need high quality facilities or we will fall behind the times.

“We simply can’t grow our university much more without these facilities.”

Mr Holmes said the development was also essential in terms of keeping students in the town centre.

He said: “We want something that encourages people to move to Bolton as well as spending their time in and around the town centre — that can also create better prosperity for local shops and businesses.

“We have halls at the moment where people will walk straight to the train station and go to Manchester and Liverpool to spend their money, but this will provide a really good location to get students into the town.”

Bolton Council's head of development and regeneration Keith Davies said: "The university is fundamental to everything we do. It makes all the other projects viable like the Market Place regeneration project, work to develop Bolton One and the ongoing formation of the new transport interchange.

"None of that would be possible without the university in the town."

THE SHANKLAND PLAN

A draft town centre plan was created by planning consultant Graeme Shankland on behalf of Bolton Council in November 1964.

It put forward the aims of the council for the future of the town centre.

The plan aimed to meet the needs of an increasing population in Bolton.

Key suggestions included building more and better shops and markets and providing new educational, cultural and entertainment facilities.

Friends of Cheadle Square have pointed out that the plan looks at creating a new town park running from Queens Park up to the civic centre.

Council chiefs have argued that the 1964 plan is outdated and inappropriate for consideration in modern Bolton — but said the plan actually cites space for education behind Le Mans Crescent.