Bury continues to move forward with various town centre projects with several other major developments in Radcliffe and Prestwich.
Developers also continue to table plans for schemes that catch the eye and promise to bring new homes, leisure and medical facilities to the borough.
Below are are some of the key projects could transform the town in 2024 and beyond.
Re-development of the centre of Prestwich
The vision for a £100m re-development of the centre of Prestwich includes a new food and market hall and a village square.
Developer Muse and Bury Council have unveiled new computer generated images and an updated masterplan on the future of Prestwich village with a planning application expected in 2024.
A previous public consultation conducted by the council’s development partners Muse said that the project should take inspiration from Manchester city centre’s Mackie Mayor, alongside projects in Chorlton, Altrincham and Didsbury, to provide a leisure focussed type of market hall.
The latest concept image clearly shows such a development with Muse saying they plan a ‘food hall for local food operators and communal seating that spills out onto the village square’.
The project will replace the current Longfield Centre with Bury Council saying they hope to ‘cement Prestwich as one of the best places to live and spend time in the North West ’.
The plans include a new community hub building, including a library and community space that can be used for events, clubs and art and culture.
Mill Gate Centre
A vision of a transformed Bury town centre by redeveloping the Mill Gate Shopping Centre and the surrounding 15 acres to include less retail and more housing has been put forward.
The council has published an update to its strategy for the town centre shopping complex after it acquired the centre and wider estate alongside joint venture partner Bruntwood in April 2022.
A “draft strategic regeneration framework”, a 300-page document will go before the public for their views if the authority’s cabinet gives the go ahead next week.
The council describe the proposals as having “the potential to deliver one of the North West’s most ambitious regeneration projects”.
The vision puts forward proposals to deliver 120 homes within its first development phase, with up to 700-800 over the entire masterplan period of 15 to 20 years.
The council hopes the regenerated area will be suitable for modern retail while also catering for the leisure sector.
Radcliffe Civic Hub
The new Civic Hub is taking shape in the heart of Radcliffe town centre.
It will become the new permanent home for leisure in Radcliffe, together with a new library, community space and enhanced support for health and wellbeing.
A large area of the town centre is currently being cleared close to the market hall and construction of the hub is set to begin in 2024.
Also part of the civic hub project is the renovation of Market Chambers to host new retail, offices and studios, refurbishment of the market hall basement for a multi-purpose event space and improvements to the surrounding town centre public spaces.
It is being largely funded by £20 million won from the Levelling Up Fund in autumn 2021 and £20 million Bury Council capital programme commitment.
Transport improvements
In September, council leaders approved a transport strategy to help drive prosperity, mobility and improve the environment.
The strategy covers all modes of travel in the borough and will be used to help secure investment for transport in Bury over the next 20 years and beyond.
For Metrolink, this includes a redeveloped interchange in Bury town centre, and improvements to existing stops on the Bury line.
Across Greater Manchester, bus franchising is being rolled out, with some franchised bus services already up and running in parts of Bury, with the rest to follow by next March.
A local Bee Network Forum will be set up to help shape the borough’s future bus network.
Bury Market Flexi-Hall
The flexi hall will comprise a large, state-of-the-art, carbon neutral, multifunctional events space that can support market stalls, ‘pop-up’ trading, live performance and community events.
The development will also include a café bar, an area dedicated to office functions, and space dedicated to the provision of workshops, co-worker space or small business start-ups.
Radcliffe’s new 750-place high school at Spring Lane
A new 750-place high school is to be built in Radcliffe in 2024 after the final planning hurdle was crossed.
Bury Council’s planning committee unanimously passed the proposals on Tuesday evening which will see children from the town able to attend school there for the first time since 2014.
The school, operated by Star Academies, will be built at the site of the temporary leisure centre on Spring Lane, which will be replaced by a new ‘hub’ building which will shortly be constructed in the town centre.
Currently, hundreds of youngsters living in Radcliffe, which has a population of more than 30,000, face a daily commute to other areas of Bury.
In October, a separate planning application was approved to build a two storey temporary school building, which will house the first intake of 150 pupils from September 2024. The permanent school will be built around it with pupils planned to migrate there in spring 2025.
