18 March 2010

Middlewich Vision Wins Top BURA Award

Middlewich Vision has won the British Urban Regeneration Association's (BURA) Community Award in the 2010 Waterways Renaissance Awards at last night's award ceremony at the Lowry in Salford Quays.

Classified as a failing market town by the Countryside Agency in its Market Town Healthcheck Initiative, the community, public, private and voluntary sectors came together to create the Middlewich Vision to regenerate the town.

The community-led masterplan aimed to improved connectivity between the town centre and canal by reducing the physical and visual barriers of heavily congested roads, derelict buildings and empty shops. There were 13,000 boat passages through Middlwich each year but the majority of boaters did not use the town centre or canal frontage as both appeared derelict. 

Community involvement and empowerment lie at the heart of the project. The masterplan was completed with extensive community consultation and events and community projects to record the town's history orally, through music, festivals and archives, sit alongside commercial initiatives to regenerate the town.

Following debates with local residents, a unique partnership has been formed with Tesco which will see the supermarket work with local shopkeepers and develop an in-town store, as opposed to one lying on the outskirts. This is now being used as a model of good practice. The Middlewich Clean Team, which has more than 150 regular volunteers and over 1,500 supporters, is recognised by Keep Britain Tidy and used as an exemplar throughout England.

Spending in the town has increased, annual boat rallies and festivals have improved the local economy and improved towpaths have attracted more visitors to the town. The Floating Boat Festival in 2008 attrractived over 5,000 visitors and added £100,000 to the local economy. The Clean Team ensure the towpath and town are kept free from litter which has helped to reduced incidences of valdalism. Local schools are visited to encourage involvement and this has led to a partnership with Middlewich Youth Theatre.

The Vision was also runner-up in the Strategy & Masterplanning award category.