Azeem Khan
John Chesworth
Paula Davies
Rob Binns
Rachel McQueen
Richard Taylor
Martin Kelly
The city investment plan was drawn up during the pandemic to really understand what Preston wants to be. The feedback was a dynamic, confident, growing city, a city that has potential for its people, its businesses, but is sustainable for all.
An inclusive, economically and well-growing, well-connected and liveable city. That’s where the ‘walkable city’ idea comes in.
There’s ambition but it is combined with civic pride and distinct placemaking. We don’t want to be just a little Manchester. There are distinctive things about what Preston can be.
What has happened at UCLan with its masterplan is £250m of development, with world class public realm and infrastructure. Things are happening.
RT: Progress has been made in Preston but there’s a lot more that needs to be done to help businesses in the city centre. It is a struggle to see Preston as a city sometimes. When it comes to decision making there needs to be more speed.
All the plans that are there are great, and when they happen in the next five to ten years, Preston will be a different place, but it’s timescales we need now.
And we need to know what impact that’s going to have on the businesses, and whether we remain in Preston or move to the outskirts, because that’s certainly a question that we can ask.
Phil Riley
I’ve owned a business in Preston for seven years and before that I worked in the area. The majority of people in Preston don’t see themselves as in a city. They still see it as a big town, because nothing’s really happened since it became a city.
So, it’s great to see all these plans, it’s great to see everything that’s happening, and it is really exciting to see where it’s going. The Station Quarter will bring people into Preston, and that will be really good.
But more is needed. We need a conference centre. The Guild Hall is just sat there doing nothing. We see people like Liam Gallagher going to Blackburn to perform in concert and think, why isn’t that happening in Preston?
RB: When you look at the university area and what has happened with the UCLan masterplan, it is amazing. It is a beacon of what can happen in a city when somebody does really step up and stake their claim.
Looking at the Church Street area, which we all know needs a great deal of investment, I see even more potential. That’s because a residential and commercial offering can all be brought into it to give it more of a village feel. Everything is within walking distance.
One of the hangovers from Tithebarn was there were lots of different owners of different parcels
Frank McKenna
of land, but that is changing. There has been movement, people have been selling and things are unlocking. There’s a new residential tower being build by the Heaton Group. The potential is huge.
The Blackburn city bid is relevant for the whole of the county. If you have Preston and Blackburn as cities, with a corridor right between them with the National Cyber Force headquarters and everything else in the middle of it, it is an opportunity, the creation of a super hub.
We will have two cities almost touching each other: the administrative city and the manufacturing hub with that huge Enterprise Zone. That is something you can go out and market, not just to the UK but to the rest of the world.
If Preston and Blackburn, regardless of whether they’ve got city status, actually look and think, ‘hang on, we can do something here’ and start setting an example of what cooperation is, that is the way forward.
PR: I’m slightly unconvinced that city status will make a lot of difference to Blackburn. The reason we put in the application was from civic pride point of view.
There was a really strong view, particularly from the younger population, that this was something we should do, and it would have been wrong not to.
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