a Vision and Scoping Study for Westbury is being prepared by Westbury Town Council and Wiltshire Council, who are working closely on the proposal.
This will inform planning policy and set out clear recommendations showing how key issues facing the town should be addressed.
The initiative has been taken forward by Westbury Town Council’s Town Centre Viability Group, the working group charged with exploring ways and means of enhancing the town to attract retail business activity and wider public usage.
The council has appointed a team of consultants, led by regeneration specialists Urban Practitioners. Their team includes planners, urban designers and architects and they will be working with property consultants Knight Frank, and transport consultants Colin Buchanan.
They are researching the key issues at the moment to put together a picture of Westbury’s strengths and weaknesses. This will look at a wide range of subjects from the physical design of the town, through to the community infrastructure and the prospects for business, retail and homes.
As part of the research process the project team will be at the Westbury Christmas street event day on Saturday 11th December. They will have a consultation stall in and among the other activities and are looking forward to hearing what local people have to say about Westbury.
Following this, the team will start to draw up their initial ideas and develop these in early 2011 with the project steering group.
“We particularly want to get wide and varied feedback from all of our local residents to help make this a robust and effective study,” said cllr Sue Ezra, chair of the Town Centre Viability Group. “We hope to attract comment from every sector of our community, particularly our local young people.”
The Vision and Scoping Study for Westbury is a joint project between Westbury Town Council, Mid Wilts Economic Partnership and the Area Board.
