Bolton town centre: Alternative plan for Cheadle Square park

This comes after plans were announced for a £1million new pocket park on the former Odeon site on Ashburner Street along with an announcement that the borough will receive a slice of £9million worth of investment in greenspaces from the government.

But Bolton Civic Trust says that still has concerns about the site, and believes that the town centre will still not have the greenspace it truly needs unless its proposal for another park northside of Cheadle Square is taken up.

Chair Richard Shirres said: “As regards provision of pocket parks and green public amenity spaces, the Civic Trust is certainly not against using the Odeon site albeit that £1million seems rather excessive.

“Rather there is a chronic need to expand this provision further within the town centre’s 70 hectares. 

“Currently it's much less than one per cent.  

“This means preserving existing green space and actively pursuing other sites, so that instead, the target should be much nearer towards a double figure percentage for a healthy town centre environment and one that better favours social and economic regeneration.”

The plans envisage a new park in Cheadle Square

The trust has argued since 2016 that the Cheadle Square site would be the ideal location for a new pocket park and has unveiled its own plans for how this could look.

Mr Shirres and fellow members of the trust say that they believe generous transport links, good transport routes into and out of the town centre the areas potential to be landscaped into a public gathering space all work in its favour.

The idea has won the backing of Bolton Council corporate scrutiny committee chairman Cllr Richard Silvester, who recently held a meeting looking at the ways investment could be made in new parks.

A new pocket park has already been planned for the former Odeon site on Ashburner Street

Cllr Silvester said: “I very much like the proposals which the Civic Trust have put forward.

“They are imaginative and the Civic Trust should be looked at as a key partner in the development and regeneration of Bolton town centre.

“I would like to see them more involved with plans and schemes because they have some excellent professional ideas.

“A few months ago, I put forward a motion at Bolton Council, which called upon the Conservative administration to hold a public meeting which would include the Civic Trust and other key stakeholders to explain to everyone, what is occurring with Bolton town centre and what is being planned.

“We shall await to see how long it takes the Conservative Council to organise this meeting.”

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Speaking at a recent meeting of the committee, council leader Cllr Martyn Cox said he was open to elected representatives putting forward ideas for new greenspaces.

He said: “Most of the town centres that you visit are green in nature, they’ve got a lot of green in them and of course that does take lot of maintenance.”

He added: “I think what members need to do around budget time is identify sites and budgets and bring them forward as proposals.”