Town Centre Futures

I took the car for its annual MOT today. I was told it would take two plus hours, so I went for a walk around the nearby Town Centre.

The main blip is the Unilever works adjoining Warrington Bank Quay station, which is a major landmark on the west coast railway line. Unilever is pulling out and so the future of this large site is up for grabs. Housing is the likeliest outcome.

The extra is the centre of town. These sculptures - there are others - have never really worked for me. It’s all a bit overdone and incoherent. And the centre itself is really struggling. Most centres are, with the ravages wrought by the pandemic and the acceleration of buying online, but In this town there is a lot of big out of centre retail and easy access to both Manchester and Liverpool. Which inevitably leads to the question - has the centre got a significant role any more ? I hope so, but I think it’s future needs some radically different thinking.

The car passed its MOT.