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Council proposal to spend £9Millon

Date published: 12 March 2010

Rochdale Borough Council has announced proposals to spend a total of almost £9m; the money will be spent on a range of projects including transport improvements, town centre regeneration, major events, improving local people’s skills, and providing extra front-line social care staff.

The proposals include £3.5m on transport - including the completion of a Rochdale inner ring-road, improved parking at railway stations, and better traffic management for Heywood town centre.

£3m of the cash goes towards kick-starting major changes to Rochdale town centre after the council adopted a new Masterplan for the town. This includes ambitious plans to open up the town hall square into one of Europe’s largest public spaces. Other investment in the town centre will pay for improvements to Drake Street and the area at the bottom of Yorkshire Street.

£400,000 will be spent on skills and training – to try and ensure that local people are best-placed for employment opportunities when the region’s economy picks up. Targeted community and learner-led projects will be aimed at young people and families, and adults needing help with literacy. There’ll also be re-training schemes for people working in vulnerable business sectors.

A programme of events throughout 2010 will get £250,000.

There will also be further support for attracting inward investment to the borough, including Kingsway Business Park.

The council is also proposing to allocate an additional £580,000 from the budget pressures fund to spend on front line children’s social care services. From April 2010 onwards this will be used to provide additional resources, including an additional 14 front line staff.

Most of the funding will come from the council’s priority investment fund and capital programme, already allocated through the annual budget last month. It is in addition to other spending previously announced by the council in the budget-setting process.

The proposals will be presented to the council’s cabinet for decision on Monday 22 March 2010.

What the money will be spent on:

Transport

Completion of an inner ring-road for Rochdale town centre, including enhancements to the Townhead junction
Better railway station parking at Rochdale, Littleborough and Castleton
Improvements to traffic management in Heywood town centre
Environmental improvement to Littleborough Arches
Completing the Roch Valley Trail
£1.5m on strategic improvements of the highways including major resurfacing programmes

Rochdale town centre

Town Hall square phase one – following on from the work in the Masterplan last year.
Building and signage improvements on Drake Street to create an enhanced environment to encourage investment.
Integration of the colleges to Rochdale town centre – improved subway connections and creation of a public square on St Mary’s Gate.
Pedestrianisation and improvements at the bottom of Yorkshire Street and the Butts area to complement investment in other areas of the town centre.
Works to establish the future potential uses for the Town Hall.

Skills

Adult literacy
Skills outreach work to engage local people in learning and development opportunities.
Support for young people to encourage their progression into training or employment.
Family learning scheme to encourage learning and ultimately progression to employment.
Fund entitlement to free retraining for employees in vulnerable businesses/sectors.

Image, branding and events

Strengthen Kingsway’s strategic marketing proposition to inward investors.
Support implementation of the new borough brand and ‘quality of life’ proposition the borough offers through additional funding for tourism, events and regional/national marketing.
A programme of events throughout 2010 – including the Feel Good Festival in the summer and Christmas events in all four townships.

Comments

All that money and they (the Lib Dems) are still getting rid or wardens at sheltered housing schemes. This is trying to make them look good before the elections - too late I say.

Quite concerned at the road improvements - RMBC track record on road junctions isn't one to boast about!

Until many town inhabitants realise that they have to pay Council Tax and not constantly avoid it - by more and more adults living in the same property - then there will never be the money in the town for improvements. It will constantly remain a third world town!
I wonder how much money is remitted overseas as opposed to being paid to RMBC?
At the end of the day, RMBC can only tax existing ratepayers to a certain level before the riots start.

How have we been able to get the money to do all these things?
What will the Council Tax be in 2011?.
All this propaganda, we must be nearing the knock knock, "sorry to trouble you, but we are canvassing for" - take your pick.

£1.5m on road resurfacing! Some of our roads need to be completely rebuilt. There are thousands of miles of roads in the borough that haven't been resurfaced for 30 or 40 years and are in a shocking state. Some are collapsing and being shored up. Where is the plan. Why isn't there an annual programme to ensure all roads are refurbished over say 20 or 30 years?

Everything here should have been started ten years ago, would have cost less ten years ago and would have reaped dividends leaving Rochdale in a much stronger position than it is already.
'Too little, too late' seems to be the watchword.

Will the same idiots responsible for the Townhead debacle be designing the revised layout? God help us; maybe they will propose a large roundabout or more two lanes that reduce to one once through the lights that cause chaos?