Housing Market Renewal Public Meeting: November 2005 at Kirkholt Community Centre

In the summer of 2005 Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council employed Urbed Consultants to implement a plan for Kirkholt. The purpose of the plan was to increase the number of privately owned homes around the estate.

Lots of people came to the public meeting.

From our photo gallery: Housing Market Renewal Public Meeting

The Urbed Consultants were quite offensive in their attitude presentation. TRAK arranged a public meeting in October 2005 which was held at the Kirkholt Community Centre. Approximately 450 people attended and gave their views. As a result, the Urbed consultants were dismissed, and the whole plan for Kirkholt was put on hold.

A Steering Group was set up early in 2006, which includes a number of tenants residents from around the estate and representatives of Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council, Rochdale Boroughwide Housing consultants Mouchel Parkman. The group has met each month to develop a new plan for the estate. A Vision For Kirkholt. The aim is to present the plan to the Government towards the end of the year.

During the summer, the Kirkholt Steering Group were invited to Langley to meet with Officers and local people involved in the Housing Market Renewal process there.

We were keen to know how plans were developed and what local people think about progress so far. The Langley HMR plan is about three years ahead of us.

Two private companies have built new houses for sale on the edge of Langley and most have been sold. The next phase is aimed at building other developments nearer to the centre of Langley which would be a mix of for sale and ror rent, with some a mixture of the two, that is partly owned and partly rented.

Local people had been fully involved in the consultations and, although they were critical of some of the details, had accepted that a greater choice and variety of housing would be good for the estate.

We were grateful to our hosts for this insight into what is going on. The Kirkholt Group has been looking at draft plans for our estate, and the consultation will be opened up to all who live or work here at a first public meeting in the spring of 2007.