Polite request for leafleters and donations

Help us protect the identity of the six towns of Stoke-on-Trent, its villages and the quality of life of its residents by giving whatever you can to ensure that March on Stoke is a success!

A £1 donation from everyone on this page can pay for a leaflet drop to every household, and posters promoting the march, across the city. It will ensure that we continue to raise political awareness and get the message across loud and clear that it is the people of Stoke-on-Trent who hold ultimate power, not elected and unelected representatives.

Please send your donations, whatever you can afford, to marchonstoke@gmail.com

If you can offer to leaflet and area please draw on the below Map to show your area or contact an admin with the roads you can leaflet

View March on Stoke in a larger map

Council Administration Buildings

Map to show the Spread of Council Administration Building across the City all of which are being considered for closure and sale to enable the new Civic Centre, and for staff to relocate to Hanley

 

How to Object to the Planning Application

With the many petitions (910 as of 12th Jan) and petition2 (185 as of 12th Jan) ongoing against the Councils £55million proposed new Civic Centre building, its surprising the council planning department is reporting just 20 objection This is no doubt due to it being submitted over the Christmas period, so please click and send your objections


email planning.apps@stoke.gov.uk with the subject: 54398/FUL  or write to 
Email addresss for the Planning Committee are  

Planning, Civic Centre, Glebe Street, Stoke-on-Trent ST4 1RN quoting 54398/FUL

or to e-mail all members of the planning committee 

tom.reynolds@stoke.gov.uk, gurmeetsingh.kallar@stoke.gov.uk, Jack.Brereton@stoke.gov.uk,
janine.bridges@stoke.gov.uk, alan.dutton@stoke.gov.uk, terence.follows@stoke.gov.uk,  debra.gratton@stoke.gov.uk, peter.hayward@stoke.gov.uk, shazad.hussain@stoke.gov.uk, adrian.knapper@stoke.gov.uk, andy.platt@stoke.gov.uk, paul.shotton@stoke.gov.uk,  amjid.wazir@stoke.gov.uk

Opposition Councillors Call for Rethink

Cllr Paul, Breeze (unaffiliated), and Dave Conway (City Independent) have submitted a motion asking for Council members to consider an urgent rethink on its proposal to build a new £55million Civic Centre in Hanley.

This comes on the back of massive community uproar with 3 petitons of getting close to 4,000 signatures requesting a rethink, and a March planned for 23rd February from Hanley to Stoke being organised on Facebook with close to 1,700 members already

The motion reads

 In view of the dire economic circumstances, globally, nationally and in particular, devastatingly, locally in Stoke-on-Trent, and in light of widespread public disapproval of the council’s previous decision to borrow £40m, and rising, of taxpayers money to relocate the civic headquarters from Stoke Town to Hanley, this council:

1) radically rethink it’s overall strategy of the future regeneration of the city centre and the city of Stoke-on-Trent as a whole, and whilst the strategy is revised, the £40m proposed borrowing for the Central Business District contained in the council approved capital programme be suspended.

2) request the Cabinet to rescind the decision to move the civic headquarters from Stoke Town to Hanley, and retain the civic centre building in its current location and for its current use in Stoke Town.

URBED Masterplan for Stoke Town Centre

In 2011 URBED publically consulted on a Masterplan for Stoke Town Centre  it was released in Oct '11 (just 15 months ago!!) at a cost of £160,00 and which on page 21 states - 

"The proposed vision for Stoke Town is therefore as a city centre quarter including the University, College, Station and administrative hub. The Town Centre and the former Spode Works will become the heart of this quarter and a focus for its activity. This activity does not need to be created, it already exists......"

In the UK we have become used to large conurbations with very small and compact city centres. This however would not be the case on the continent where the city centre is far larger and includes a series of quarters each mixing housing and employment with city centre functions such as a University Quarter, Administrative Quarter and Station Quarter.

Stoke is unusual in the UK being a polycentric conurbation that historically did not have a clear city centre. The Council has been right to promote Hanley as a city centre because there is a need for a clear focus for higher order retailing and cultural activities. However, given the unique structure there is no reason to assume that this means that Stoke must adopt the UK model of a compact centre in a big conurbation. Why not adopt a continental model that sees a large city centre with a series of quarters, and indeed a wider conurbation made up of a network of urban villages? The model for this in the UK is, of course, London which while being on a vast scale has successfully developed a polycentric village structure.

This suggests a vision for Stoke Town as a city centre quarter. This is already hinted at in the University’s vision for a ‘University Quarter’. It could also incorporate elements of an administrative quarter or indeed a station quarter like the area around the Eurostar terminal in Lille. This is compatible with the strategy for the City Centre that emphasises the importance of the University Boulevard in linking the station to the city centre. The small addition to this strategy that we are suggesting is that the access be continued for another few hundred meters so that the former Spode Works site and Stoke Town Centre is also perceived as a functional city centre quarter.

Documents

Stoke-upon-Trent Masterplan by URBED October 2011

Adopted Core Spatial Strategy by Stoke on Trent City Council

Office Rationalisation Stratergy by King Sturge May 2011

Genr8 company reports

Labour MP calls for rethink over £150m Rochdale regeneration deal with Genr8 by Rochdale  Observer

Genr8’s troubled plan for Stoke-on-Trent’s Central Business District by estatesgazette.com

Genr8 consultantion results

District Auditor

The Audit Commission’s role is to protect the public purse. We do this by appointing auditors, publishing analysis and comparing data, What’s important to us: Economy, efficiency and effectiveness – promoting and providing high quality and excellent value-for-money public services – recognising that public money, which is provided involuntarily by taxpayers, is special.

E-mail Mark C Stocks  at mark.c.stocks@uk.gt.com

Tel 0121 232 5437