“We think Bedford is on the up" Mayor says redevelopment plans will help people be proud of their town
Bedford’s mayor has said the purchase of the Lloyds Bank building on Bedford’s High Street is part of his election pledge to make the town centre a place where “people want to shop, live, work and socialise”.
Mayor, Tom Wootton, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “It’s the council that has the belief in their town – nobody else is going to big Bedford up if we don’t.
“We think Bedford is a town on the up.”
The portfolio holder for economic growth, planning and prosperity, councillor Andrea Spice (Conservative, Wixams and Wilstead) said: “I truly believe that this huge redevelopment will help residents to be proud of their town.
“They’ll want to come and they’ll want to explore it, there will be more options, there will be more things to do.
“We’re trying to get people to come into town, stay a bit longer, explore a bit more, go find something that you haven’t found.
“But they’ll only do that for so long, we need to keep filling it and adding new things.
“Some people think that Bedford has been forgotten, or it’s too tired, or it’s not got what they want.
“So we’re trying to bring that all together to make something that people want.”
There have been concerns about the council borrowing money to buy up property, but councillor Spice said people who are worried need to “try to look at the bigger picture”.
“Don’t look at each individual thing, we need to look at the vision of what we’re trying to do to transform our town centre.
“For our residents, for our visitors, for our business and investors, for everybody, ” she said.
“We want a town centre that everybody is proud of and they think, ‘gosh, you know what, I’m going to go to Bedford, because they’ve got everything there that I could need.
“But looking at each thing individually it’s hard to see it. You need to look at the bigger picture of what we’re trying to achieve.”
Deputy mayor, councillor Jim Weir (Conservative, Great Denham) said that while the detractors may be focussing on the borrowing, the council is getting money to invest in the future development of the town.
“We’ve just had a return visit for a peer review from the Local Government Association, and they said quite categorically, you have to invest to move any town forward,” he said.
“And what we’re doing seems to be the right thing,” he said.
Mayor Wootton added: “It’s quite exciting when you look at it. This is a council that really believes in its own town centre, it’s going to big the town up and have real pride in Bedford.
“I think we’ve got a very good chance of doing something quite impressive here.”