MP welcomes Council’s town centre u-turn

Simon Danczuk MP

Rochdale’s MP has welcomed news that Council regeneration chiefs have stopped trying to develop a “white elephant third shopping centre” and have revised their plans to give them a more realistic chance of succeeding. 

“It is great news that the Council has finally listened and stopped ploughing ahead with a plan that was never going to get off the ground,” Simon Danczuk said in response to news that the third shopping centre had been dropped in favour of a leisure led development. 

“I have said for a long time that this was never going to work, I’ve brought retail experts to Rochdale who said the same and I hope we can now draw a line under years of poor regeneration and start creating a plan that’s fit for purpose.”

Mr Danczuk added that he wanted the Council to be more transparent with the public about the regeneration progress, hold regular public meetings to update local people on developments and make sure that community needs were firmly embedded in any developments.

“We need to fire the imagination of local people and let them play a part in shaping the vision for our town,” he said. “For too long local people have been shut out of regeneration plans, they’ve been secretly cooked up by the unaccountable Rochdale Development Agency and there has been no transparency. All we keep getting are occasional announcements that ‘exciting times are ahead’ and no real update on progress. This kind of approach just creates cynicism among the public and makes people feel distant from their town. We need a very different approach to create a shared, community vision that can make Rochdale a vibrant hub.”