• Contact us
  • About us
  • Digital edition
  • Online archive
Tuesday, July 8, 2025
Cumberland and Westmorland Herald
  • News
    Long-awaited go-ahead for A66 dualling scheme

    Long-awaited go-ahead for A66 dualling scheme

    Extinction Rebellion protest outside insurance brokers

    Extinction Rebellion protest outside insurance brokers

    Lake District mountain rescue volunteers called for missing man searching for lost phone

    Lake District mountain rescue volunteers called for missing man searching for lost phone

    Man arrested after assault in Penrith town centre

    Man arrested after assault in Penrith town centre

    Changes to lease accounting – how will this impact your financial statements?

    Changes to lease accounting – how will this impact your financial statements?

    Man fined £100 for using cashpoint in car park

    Man fined £100 for using cashpoint in car park

    Honour for man who devoted his life to Greystoke

    Honour for man who devoted his life to Greystoke

    Sheep breeder’s successful debut at Royal Highland Show

    Sheep breeder’s successful debut at Royal Highland Show

    Global engineering firm Babcock supports Eden charity

    Global engineering firm Babcock supports Eden charity

  • Sport
    Penrith skipper Nicky Burns calls on team to keep winning

    Penrith skipper Nicky Burns calls on team to keep winning

    £100,000 target for new changing rooms extension

    £100,000 target for new changing rooms extension

    Medal success for Upper Eden tug-of-war team

    Medal success for Upper Eden tug-of-war team

    Eden man competes in Hyrox World Games

    Eden man competes in Hyrox World Games

    Double national triumph for Stuart Robinson

    Double national triumph for Stuart Robinson

    Patterdale’s Eden Eagles make history

    Patterdale’s Eden Eagles make history

    Penrith teen crowned British vault champion

    Penrith teen crowned British vault champion

    Penrith gymnasts represent North of England in finals

    Penrith gymnasts represent North of England in finals

    New boss revealed for Penrith AFC

    New boss revealed for Penrith AFC

  • Obituaries
  • Nostalgia
  • Online archive
  • Buy Photos
  • Buy your paper
  • North Lakes Living
No Result
View All Result
Cumberland and Westmorland Herald
  • News
    Long-awaited go-ahead for A66 dualling scheme

    Long-awaited go-ahead for A66 dualling scheme

    Extinction Rebellion protest outside insurance brokers

    Extinction Rebellion protest outside insurance brokers

    Lake District mountain rescue volunteers called for missing man searching for lost phone

    Lake District mountain rescue volunteers called for missing man searching for lost phone

    Man arrested after assault in Penrith town centre

    Man arrested after assault in Penrith town centre

    Changes to lease accounting – how will this impact your financial statements?

    Changes to lease accounting – how will this impact your financial statements?

    Man fined £100 for using cashpoint in car park

    Man fined £100 for using cashpoint in car park

    Honour for man who devoted his life to Greystoke

    Honour for man who devoted his life to Greystoke

    Sheep breeder’s successful debut at Royal Highland Show

    Sheep breeder’s successful debut at Royal Highland Show

    Global engineering firm Babcock supports Eden charity

    Global engineering firm Babcock supports Eden charity

  • Sport
    Penrith skipper Nicky Burns calls on team to keep winning

    Penrith skipper Nicky Burns calls on team to keep winning

    £100,000 target for new changing rooms extension

    £100,000 target for new changing rooms extension

    Medal success for Upper Eden tug-of-war team

    Medal success for Upper Eden tug-of-war team

    Eden man competes in Hyrox World Games

    Eden man competes in Hyrox World Games

    Double national triumph for Stuart Robinson

    Double national triumph for Stuart Robinson

    Patterdale’s Eden Eagles make history

    Patterdale’s Eden Eagles make history

    Penrith teen crowned British vault champion

    Penrith teen crowned British vault champion

    Penrith gymnasts represent North of England in finals

    Penrith gymnasts represent North of England in finals

    New boss revealed for Penrith AFC

    New boss revealed for Penrith AFC

  • Obituaries
  • Nostalgia
  • Online archive
  • Buy Photos
  • Buy your paper
  • North Lakes Living
No Result
View All Result
Cumberland and Westmorland Herald
No Result
View All Result
Home News

What are you going to do for our town centre? The question politicians must answer

by CWH
8 March 2024
in News
A A
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
Chris Ford and Stephen Macaulay

Penrith’s high street has suffered multiple blows in recent months with the looming closure of three bank branches, and key shops having closed their doors

A cost of living crisis and a growing trend towards online shopping are putting town centres under pressure like never before. And Penrith is suffering more than most, with major roadworks dragging on for weeks and blocking routes for customers and deliveries.

Against this backdrop, two local experts share with Herald readers their views and ideas on possible ways forward which could see the town’s fortunes improved.

Architect Stephen Macaulay is president of Penrith Chamber of Trade & Commerce and has a long standing personal and professional interest in the future of a thriving town centre. Dr Chris Ford is a senior lecturer at Lancaster University Management School and a Cabinet Office Policy Fellow, with a special interest in town centres, as well as being a resident of Penrith.

Over the coming months we will revisit the town centre and all the factors which could shape its future.

Stephen Macaulay writes

As spring has now officially sprung, we can start thinking about summer and making plans. I suspect many of you have plans in place already and are looking forward to some time off. You’ll have booked airport parking, thought about your luggage allowance, airport transfers, exchange rates, hotels and so on. You’ve done this before, you know the pitfalls of not planning and you’ve done it often enough to know better.

Why is it then that when it comes to the future of our town there is no plan, no strategy, no direction?

This is 2024 and we are in Penrith.

In what is very likely going to be an election year, we find ourselves in new territory following on from last year’s redrawing of the council boundaries following Local Government Reorganisation.

Not believing in keeping things simple, we also have a new constituency boundary to manage. It has no relation to the council boundary. It feels like we are in a maelstrom of ever-changing circumstance. While we haven’t physically moved anywhere, the physical impact on our town will be significant.

When it comes to election time, if we don’t put a new plan for Penrith on every party’s manifesto, it won’t matter which colour you vote for, our town will suffer.

It is time to force them to sit down and shape the future of Penrith over the next five, 10, 25 years.

Without a plan, we are setting ourselves on a course of continued failure and decline. This might sound clichéd, but we really are at a turning point.

With the new authority, we are now in direct competition with Kendal and Barrow for funding. This is Kendal and Barrow that attracted £13.5m and £16m from the Levelling Up Fund while we squandered the opportunity by years of not planning for this and other funding bids.

You may have read in the Herald recently that we were eventually allocated £7.4m from the same pot as the Levelling Up Fund, for a project that was chosen by the then Eden District Council because it was the only project that was ‘spade ready’.

No other aspect was considered. It didn’t meet the funding criteria and Penrith Chamber of Trade & Commerce, Penrith Town Council, both Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) Penrith Futures Partnership and many others spoke against it because it ran counter to the criteria of the fund. It involved the development of employment space on a greenfield site at J41, which would take people away from the town centre, not back into it.

We have since been advised that the ‘spade ready’ project was not as ‘spade ready’ as first thought. Significant elements of the development were not costed and with increased inflationary pressures cited, the project is a non-starter.

Rubbing salt in the wound further, we understand that the KPIs (key performance indicators) that Eden District Council chose to measure the success of the development, by now mean that the funding cannot be reallocated to the town centre.

And how did it get to this point?

When the 2018 Beacon Villages Masterplan was presented it was heavily criticised and instead of working together to find consensus, plans were abruptly shelved.

When the new leadership took over the helm the focus moved to the climate emergency and the sustainability of the town left, as a result, to chance.

Without having strategic plans in place when the levelling up fund was announced, EDC’s response was to reach out to the community looking for ‘expressions of interest’ and see what opportunities there might be ­— could there be a project out there that met all the criteria of the fund as well as being ready to go? This was pot luck and it would appear that the answer was ‘no’. Yet in the intervening two years, no further action has been taken to move other plans forward.

Every venture needs a plan. When you go on holiday you cost this up before you book, When you start a business, you start with an idea then test the idea, make a business plan, look at strengths and weaknesses opportunities and threats. Then you go to the funder with your great idea and your costings to justify a loan. In every part of life this is the way of it. Ideas, planning, implementation.

This is no different when it comes to town planning. If we want Penrith to succeed and prosper, we need to plan it.

We need our leaders to understand the importance of this and make our voices heard.

When you vote this year, vote for Penrith. Vote for your town. And hold them to account when they fail to plan.

When someone knocks on your door asking for your vote, ask them “what are you going to do for our town centre?”

Tags: premium

Related Posts

Long-awaited go-ahead for A66 dualling scheme
Latest

Long-awaited go-ahead for A66 dualling scheme

8 July 2025
Extinction Rebellion protest outside insurance brokers
Latest

Extinction Rebellion protest outside insurance brokers

7 July 2025
Lake District mountain rescue volunteers called for missing man searching for lost phone
Latest

Lake District mountain rescue volunteers called for missing man searching for lost phone

7 July 2025
Man arrested after assault in Penrith town centre
Latest

Man arrested after assault in Penrith town centre

6 July 2025
Changes to lease accounting – how will this impact your financial statements?
Expert advice

Changes to lease accounting – how will this impact your financial statements?

6 July 2025
Man fined £100 for using cashpoint in car park
News

Man fined £100 for using cashpoint in car park

4 July 2025
No Result
View All Result

Stay connected

Facebook Twitter Instagram

Most popular

Man fined £100 for using cashpoint in car park

Man fined £100 for using cashpoint in car park

4 July 2025
Long-awaited go-ahead for A66 dualling scheme

Long-awaited go-ahead for A66 dualling scheme

8 July 2025
Changes to lease accounting – how will this impact your financial statements?

Changes to lease accounting – how will this impact your financial statements?

6 July 2025
Penrith Lions mark 50 years of serving community

Penrith Lions mark 50 years of serving community

4 July 2025
Fun day in Penrith to celebrate community spirit

Fun day in Penrith to celebrate community spirit

3 July 2025
Honour for man who devoted his life to Greystoke

Honour for man who devoted his life to Greystoke

4 July 2025
Cumberland and Westmorland Herald Logo

33 Middlegate
Penrith
Cumbria
CA11 7SY

Phone: 01768 862313
Email: news@cwherald.com

Registered in England as Barrnon Media Limited. No: 12475190
VAT registration number: 343486488

Explore

  • News
  • Sport
  • Farming
  • Property
  • Obituaries
  • Nostalgia
  • Your view

Useful links

  • Contact us
  • Photosales
  • Online archive
  • Buy your paper
  • Digital edition
  • North Lakes Living
  • Advertise
  • About us

Follow us on

© Barrnon Media Limited 2025

Terms & Conditions / Privacy Policy / Cookie Policy

This website and its associated newspaper are members of the Independent Press Standards Organisation
Review Your Cart
0
Discount
Add Coupon Code
Subtotal
Total Installment Payments
Bundle Discount
Checkout

 
0
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Sport
  • Obituaries
  • Nostalgia
  • Online archive
  • more
    • North Lakes Living
    • Buy Photos
    • Buy your paper
    • About us
    • Contact us

© 2020 Cumberland & Westmorland Herald