REDDITCH’S Labour leader has unveiled an alternative vision to the council’s current plans for the town centre.
Coun Joe Baker said the party’s plan would continue with the regeneration of the Town Hall as a community hub, reintroducing a one-stop-shop system and having a potential police desk installed.
However, under Labour proposals, the library would stay in the building where it currently is, attempting to renegotiate the Towns Fund to be reallocated into putting a new glass-front design onto the existing building.
A glass-covered walkway at the side would also be installed, acting as an entrance to the Kingfisher, and landlords would be consulted to try and upgrade the fronts of other existing buildings.
Current plans to move the library to the Town Hall, which would see the existing building be demolished and using the Towns Fund cash to make way for a plaza, are already well into the consultation stage.
However, Coun Baker insists as long as plans can show the same area is being developed and will be of benefit, the specifics of the work carried out by the cash can be renegotiated.
He also claimed it ‘wasn’t too late’ to change course on the library plans.
Other details include reintroducing a weekly outdoor market with German Christmas market-like wooden stalls on Market Place, Mercian Square and Alcester Street.
These, he added, would be affordable and form part of a Redditch Independent Business Area.
Coun Baker said: “With smaller businesses coming into town and increasing the footfall, it will make Redditch more economically viable for bigger businesses to invest here.
“The main issue is we aren’t currently making the town attractive enough to these businesses.”
Labour would also look into redeveloping shops on Unicorn Hill and Bates Hill, with Bates Hill being a one-way system going down the hill.
The existing taxi rank on Unicorn Hill would be modernised and short-stay car parking introduced for shoppers popping into shops on Unicorn Hill.
Coun Baker added: “Our main objective is to bring the centre of Redditch back to life by listening to its residents, making it more visible and offering more variety.”
