Dreams of a reinvigorated East Lancashire are coming to life amid the peaceful Pennine slopes. Lisa Miles reports
Long seen as a region of low wages, low employment and low aspirations, East Lancashire has been battling with an image problem for years. Rolling hills and picturesquely decaying cotton mills do not a booming economy make. Population figures are either fighting to remain stable or even in decline - the Burnley area is predicted to see a fall in population of 7.6 per cent between 2004 and 2029, according to the Office for National Statistics.In 2005 broadcaster Anthony Wilson and Yvette Livesey were asked to envisage a series of cultural and social proposals to accompany work under the housing market renewal pathfinder, Elevate, and stem the flow of departing graduates and skilled workers. The Pennine Lancashire brand was born and was soon tripping off the tongue of every public sector official in the area, as well as representatives from the Chamber of Commerce, the Lancashire Food and Drink Festival and the Witch Way bus company.
With plans afoot for a major Pennine Lancashire launch in late summer 2007, Wilson and Livesey are keen to detail the current progress of their work, which officially started in late 2006. "It takes a very long time to line everybody up facing in the same direction," says Wilson. "There is now so much happening, something has happened on every front." Creative Concern in Manchester has been chosen to evolve and control the brand, with East Lancashire firms lined up to complete the design work.
One of the central ideas of the Pennine Lancashire dream is the Fashion Tower, which highlights an ideal running throughout the project: to build on the cultures and history of East Lancashire. The scheme will be a landmark building to celebrate the textile industry, with education and business at its heart. A location has been identified - the Hurstwood-owned Victoria Mill in Burnley, the first mill in the Weavers' Triangle, an area astride the Leeds and Liverpool Canal that was once at the heart of Burnley's textile industry - and forms part of a wider regeneration project for the area.
Funding is in place for the first phase and Ralph Ardill, founder of the Brand Experience Consultancy, has been appointed as the project's designer, with his ideas ready to be presented to the public in the summer. "He adores this project. And not just because he comes from Oldham and his mother worked in a mill," says Wilson.
Ardill designed the acclaimed Storehouse for Guinness in Dublin and after turning down the opportunity to design the Millennium Experience at Greenwich - his preference was for Birmingham - he went on to win awards for the zones he developed in the Dome.
Meanwhile, a site has also been chosen outside Blackburn for Goal, a football theme park. A feasibility study is being funded by the council, the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA) and Capita in Blackburn. "This was all held up by some confusion with the NWDA about why it was different from the National Football Museum in Preston," says Wilson. "What won the day were the words "Soccer Junction' to describe junction 31 of the M6, because on the one side you go to the football museum and on the other you go to the world's first football theme park."
Their idea for an extreme sports centre, as part of envisaging Pennine Lancashire as a grown-up playground for the North West, was thwarted when the graceful slopes of Chill Factore started appearing at the Trafford Centre. But in the meantime Rawtenstall has been quietly developing the idea of the Adrenaline Gateway, a £370m project aimed at putting East Lancashire on the map as a centre of excellence for extreme sports, for which it has tried to obtain Lottery funding. The Pennine Lancashire team are now lending a hand there.
And as part of improving the public realm, Manchester architect Stephen Hodder has been brought on board to help develop Pennine Lancs Squared, a succession of linked public spaces in towns across the region. Each town, including Burnley, Accrington and Colne, has already identified a site.
The importance of connecting Pennine Lancashire with its mighty southerly neighbour, Manchester, through improved transport links is central to Wilson's perception of what East Lancashire needs to help it flourish. "As the regional capital grew and grew, the new Manchester spread to Ramsbottom 15 years ago and then began spreading into Rawtenstall and Bacup about five years ago," he says. "The whole idea is to push the new Manchester just over the hill, which will make a difference to the region."
One idea that is still meeting with a frosty reception in some circles is the reopening of the Todmorden Curve, which would allow direct trains from Manchester Victoria through to Burnley and beyond, rather than requiring commuters to change trains.
"It's important that Blackburn's connections to Manchester are made better, but it is unthinkable that Burnley has no connection to Manchester except the buses," says Wilson. "If you travel by car you meet "the wall', the M6. When we were told about the Todmorden Curve it seemed logical. In autumn 2006 we were told it wasn't happening because it is not one of Lancashire's top ten transport issues."
At a regional level this suggestion is not being actively supported but, with costs forecast at under £31m, Burnley itself is investigating the feasibility and Burnley MP Kitty Ussher has even spoken in Parliament on the subject.
What is on track regionally is a bid for government funds for the East Lancashire Rapid Transit proposal, which could provide better bus routes, improving connections between rail and road and between communities and where jobs are generated.
Ian Whittaker, NWDA area manager for Lancashire, says: "The M65 makes a huge difference and there are good road connections through East Lancashire and to Manchester and Preston. But there are issues around rail services and a recognition that this needs to be improved."
The Pennine Lancashire team has the support of the NWDA, the Chambers of Commerce and of all the relevant boroughs and Wilson and Livesey are confident that the right people are in place to realise the dream. But they are supplementing that local enthusiasm and passion with some of the world's sharpest minds, such as Ralph Ardill. "You have to bring in very clever people who work on an international basis if you are going to be a region that thinks it's international," says Wilson. "You have to be as ambitious as possible."
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