Bridgefield

This is probably the best-known example of our Lib Dem council letting the people of Stockport down.

Over the past decade, town centres across Greater Manchester have been redeveloped and regenerated. For example, Wigan now has the Grand Arcade, the Market Place in Bolton has attracted major national retailers, and construction of the new Rock shopping centre at Bury is currently well underway.

The Lib Dem response to the success of our neighbouring councils was to promise us Bridgefield. What is currently, and has been for years, a windswept and desolate car park, was to be transformed into:

(picture credit: Stockport Express)

• 650,000 sq ft of new shops



• 80,000 sq ft of leisure and dining outlets



• A multi-screen cinema



• 250 flats



• 1,750 car parking spaces

And what is the progress on this vision?

Unfortunately, the developers chosen by the Council, Lend Lease, pulled out in August 2008, after two years of not much happening. Both Lend Lease and the Council blamed the state of the economy. Lend Lease might have been able to justify their withdrawal in this way, but the fact is that the faliure of Bridgefield is largely down to the Lib Dems, and their record of apathy and inaction.

We believe that the main reason that the Bridgefield site is still a car park is that the Lib Dems missed the boat, a gross error which it will be very difficult to recover from. Wigan, Bolton, Bury & Manchester got going with their redevelopment plans several years ago while the economy was growing. They worked with developers to identify sites, worked with retailers, and started building, as a result of which, they have, or will soon have, Town Centres to be proud of. Meanwhile, Stockport's Lib Dems, who have never been terribly bothered about the state of the Town Centre, sat on their hands. When they finally did get around to doing something, years after everyone else, they came up with impressive, glossy, and expensive masterplans, but very little in the way of results. The problem now is that, even when the economy does recover, there is only so much demand for retail space within the region - because Stockport was not able to provide the kind of space that retailers need, they have gone elsewhere. They may now feel that there is no need to come to Stockport.

Stockport Labour councillors are committed to the regeneration of central Stockport -not just brining in new businesses, but also supporting those businesses already here. The doomed Bridgefield scheme assumed that there would be demand for 250 town centre apartments, which seems doubtful based on experience of other developments, and leisure developments (including bars and clubs) which never really worked at Grand Central. When the economy picks up, and retailers are ready to invest again, we need to be able to hit the ground running with schemes that are realistic and deliverable, not just about grabbing headlines.