£1.7m bid to help 'forgotten town'

REGENERATION leaders are bidding for funding of more than £1.7 million to continue restoration work on a town's heritage buildings.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council is to ask the European Regional Development Fund for £718,000 and the Heritage Lottery Fund for £1 million to develop its latest plans for Longton.

A total of 18 buildings, including Central Hall Methodist Church and the Goslings Butchers building, both in The Strand, have had their fronts restored over the last two years.

Now the city council is turning its attention to 'historically significant' buildings in private ownership.

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These are believed to include the Centre of Refurbished Excellence (CORE), and the former Aynsley, Phoenix and Boundary pottery works.

If the council secures funding, officers will invite applications from building owners for cash grants to carry out structural and aesthetic repairs – with priority given to schemes that will bring empty buildings back into use and create jobs.

A new £40,000-a-year regeneration boss will also be appointed.Traders today welcomed the scheme – but said the council still needed to do more to improve trade in the town.

Margaret Alcock, aged 64, of Longton, has run Heritage Embroidery in the indoor market for three years.

She said: "We would definitely support the work being continued.The improvements so far are there for all to see.

"There is more work needed and obviously I would like to see more being done.

"There's some lovely architecture in the town that people don't always recognise because they walk around with their heads down and don't look up.

"We want to give them a reason to have a look around and see what the town has to offer.

"The pedestrianisation cost us dearly and it has taken eight months to get the trade back. We'll never get it all back, but things are picking up."

Dave Bate, treasurer of the Longton Events Board and owner of Cafe Continental, believes the city council is not doing enough for the town.

The 55-year-old, of Blurton, said: "The work they have done up until now looks very good and it is brightening up the town for visitors. The problem is the council doesn't seem to be doing a lot else.

"The people who live and work here feel like the town is forgotten.

"There are 20-odd bottle ovens in Longton, but there is nothing to promote that and the signs off the A50 are atrocious."

The total cost of the refurbishments to date is about £750,000.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council has invested £279,000 and the rest of the funding so far has come from English Heritage and the Staffordshire Environmental Fund.

City councillor Ruth Rosenau, cabinet member for regeneration, said: "While the Longton programme has been successful in securing a number of frontage and exterior improvements over recent years, there is a need to maintain the programme as many of Longton's historic buildings are in quite poor condition."

Mrs Rosenau added that the project will help develop job opportunities by bringing buildings back into use, as well as boosting visitor numbers.