Housing Minister Brandon Lewis has visited Bacup in East Lancashire to review the £2m Townscape Heritage Initiative plan to transform the town.


The project to rejuvenate this Rossendale town is due to start a proper this month, with the iconic Pioneer Building being one of the first areas of the town to be tackled.


Lewis was taken to view many of the historic buildings which are set to benefit from the 5 year redevelopment project saying: “It was plain to see just how much potential Bacup has. It’s an incredibly well preserved Lancashire mill town and I am certain that the THI programme will have a huge impact on the local area.”

Bacup is set high in the East Lancashire hills, in a valley below rolling moors and is known as “one of the best preserved cotton mill towns in Lancashire” by English Heritage. The town is rapidly joining its neighbouring towns of Todmorden and that of Hebden Bridge in becoming destination and an art focussed cultural centre, as well as a more desirable commuter town for Greater Manchester (something which the regeneration of the town centre will undoubtedly assist in).


Local MP Jake Berry said of the developments: “Work is due to get underway in the next couple of weeks, starting with the replacement of the shop fronts in the Pioneer Building but this is just the very start – over the next two years there will be a huge improvement to the general look and feel of Bacup town centre.”


The works on the £2m scheme will include the transformation of many of the town’s historic buildings and shop fronts in a manner which is sympathetic to their setting and town as a whole, as well as construction of a new central junction to create a public space in the town.

 

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