Nantwich councillors have aired concerns over a long-running stalemate over how to spend £750,000 of funding in the town.
The Section 106 money comes from housing developers building the Kingsbourne estate in Nantwich.
The money was freed up a couple of years ago to Cheshire East Council as part of planning conditions.
But Nantwich Town Council and CEC have been unable to agree how to spend the money – and councillors fear it’s rumbled on so long the funds are losing value.
Town councillors are keen to use some to improve Brookfield Park play area, but CEC says the park is not in the town centre so does not qualify.
CEC also wants to spend £250,000 of the money in more parking spaces, but the town council says it has other ideas to make more parking available.
The issue was debated at length once more at this week’s (July 11) town council meeting in the Civic Hall.
Cllr Peter Groves said: “We were hoping it would be used to improve provision for children on Brookfield Park.
“An awful lot of people use it and there are large gaps in that play area that could be filled.
“Cheshire East say there is going to be a new play area on Kingsbourne, but we need to ensure there is a variety of equipment for all ages.”
Cllr Loic Charbonneau added: “We need to push back to Cheshire East that Brookfield falls under the Sec 106 money, and a second push back against spending any of the money on car parks.
“We want zero of the 106 money to be allocated for parking spaces, as we have a potential JustParks scheme coming on board which will provide another 100 spaces.”
Cllr Arthur Moran said: “The original £750,000 is slowly disappearing with inflation, it’s value is decreasing.
“Actual wording on the condition is the for town centre improvements and the public realm.
“We don’t want to be cutting up grass and putting tarmac down!”
Other councillors reiterated previous suggestions made for the money, including improved signage at the entry routes into the town.
Alternative ideas include improving the look of Nantwich bus station and the Snowhill.
Cllr Geoff Smith agreed improving play and park areas is key, adding: “We should be investing in the young people in the town, looking to improve their health and wellbeing.
“We need to get this over the line, to go back to Cheshire East and tell them we have consulted on this and been very clear what we wanted.”
In a previous CEC response to the town council, the authority said: “The S106 states that the Public Realm Contribution is to be used towards the costs of improvements to the public realm and town centre facilities in Nantwich and for no other purpose.
“Brookfield Park is situated well outside the town centre boundary and it would not seem to be described as a town centre facility.”
But in the same response, it’s not clear from Cheshire East why £250,000 was allocated for car parking in Snow Hill and how this money was to be used.
Nantwich Town council clerk Samantha Roberts said she would write back to Cheshire East Council to decline spending £250,000 of the money on car parking.
The response will also refer CEC to the town council’s original requests for light touch enhancements between Snow Hill car park and the town centre, and the railway station and the town centre, as well as improving play equipment at Brookfield Park.
If the money is being put towards Parks and Well Being then surely the completion of a path around Barony Park is a brilliant use of funds, hence why the Multi Award Winning Dabbers Dash was created. This would definitely cover criteria and be used for years to come as a permanent fixture. As for Barony and Brookfield play areas – replace all soft surfaces that have shrunken and decayed over the years with bark chippings! Natural and a recyclable resource. Enhance how the parks look instantly. Also painting the current equipment would help. The paint is chipping off all over the equipment. Replace wooden steps and use rubber steps for climbing as the wood is rotting. Bark chippings would be perfect on Kingsbourne too around play equipment. It’s worth considering these aspects of improvements surely? Where will another new play area go on Kingsbourne by the way?
Is the £750K still available since it was ‘freed up a couple of years ago’.
Depends if there are any restrictions on what they can spend it on but best bang for buck for the town would be providing youth clubs for the kids
I could not agree more – spending money on parking is a classic case of treating the symptoms and not the cause! I have been a resident of Nantwich for almost three years now and think that ultimately parking is not an issue, definitely not in comparison to other parts of the country and I certainly haven’t struggled at any point and my family car is rather large too!
The town is a pleasure to walk around, but at points it is not made easy to do so and that is where the town could make much more of itself!
I feel that Nantwich has clearly had strong stewardship historically to have gotten to where it is today, but at the same time it also has great future potential and should strive for more and look to other towns for inspiration. The comparisons between Nantwich and Richmond (Greater London) are numerous and palpable, and much like Nantwich, Richmond has a thriving local economy fed by demand from local people, but very rarely do they ever drive and park to make that happen (I acknowledge the large and frequently used Old Deer Park car park but even that is no bigger than our Snow Hill car park, so furthers my point).
I think spending more money on carparks is not necessary and we should be instead improving the walking/cycling provisions (clearing walkways and repainting cycleways would be a good start), which in turn would reduce the need for parking in the town and, as many studies have shown, actually increase town centre footfall – case and point being that parts of the town centre are already pedestrianised and are more busy than those that aren’t!)
I also agree with the sentiment of making the town better for the next generation, but equally would say that play parks are not the way forward as most kids aren’t interested in anything other than computer games (I was same myself) and that there are already plenty across the town in good condition, and that the best thing we can do for the next generation is to instead future proof the infrastructure – if only for the fact that driverless cars are on the horizon, parking will be a relic of the past at that point, never mind car ownership itself. We need to break free of this outdated mindset of the world revolving around cars in order to move forward. People 20 years ago would have thought it unimaginable to be cashless as a society, but here we are today without so much as a penny in our pockets…
never mind snow hill parking more urgent there is a dire need for foot paths, the route from water lode into the car park sees vehicles racing in at speed, and going around the corner to use a short cut to the town not even bothering to park, a number of people have had issues with the entitlement of these drivers, four friends were affected by poor drivers just last week,
Having used Sect 106 arrangements to provide many affordable homes and a health centre in other areas of the Country it would be interesting to be informed what CEC has in the agreements. It appears they are very poorly constructed so they are vague. You need the will of the LA to make best use of Sect 106, something that appears missing in CEC