HERE is what Mike Palin, the St Helens Council chief executive, told an audience at St Helens College on Monday as he unveiled the new town centre strategy. 

"It has been a political ambition to take more control and start to restructure the town for a number of years.

"It is a blueprint for the town centre and it is not saying everything will be done over the next few years but setting the goals of what kind of town centre we in St Helens want to have.

"It recognises the changing faces of town centres; the reality is that we are shopping in a different way and that has consequences for the type of town centre you have.

"We all shop online for convenience or we shop at the corner store for convenience or we want a day out and if you’re in St Helens and you want a day out you have Manchester, you have Liverpool, you have Cheshire Oaks, you have the Trafford centre and all the other towns within easy reach.

"We have to find a different offer that will keep people coming to St Helens town centre not just next year or the year after but the next decade and beyond.

"We also want to take more control of the town centre the reality is that the council owns one per cent of retail space in the town centre. The council therefore hasn’t had the ability to change that the public would have liked and we want to do something about that in the years ahead.

"Take more control to be able to deliver the ambition that the town has.

"So, the vision is to rejuvenate the town centre, encourage investments, increase job opportunities and for it to be distinct and about St Helens itself.

"The borough has a fantastic history, the oldest industrial canal, the Rainhill trials where Stephenson’s rocket became the first locomotive, the Foundry and Vulcan in Newton-le-Willows one of the oldest trade manufacturers in the country running right through to the 1960s, brand names like Pilkington’s and Beechams and others like Gamble, all came from town with a unique offer that reflects our history and our heritage.

"So, we want to town centre to grow as a quality day and evening hub, as residents you will be aware of that we don’t have the best evening offer currently and we want to change that in the future.

"We want to build on our reputation with the arts council, if you look at a map of all the national portfolio organisations in the north west these are the arts councils organisations that they think are best in class.

"You have a cluster in Liverpool and a cluster in Manchester, you have one in Chester, one in East Lancashire and two in St Helens.

"There are none in Warrington or Wigan, our adjacent towns, St Helens has two of those nationally recognised signification organisations and we need to build on that for arts and culture.

"We need to improve the open form in the physical space in the town and encourage more people to spend time here and money here and to encourage people to actually want to live in the town centre.

"There are investors investing in residential properties in the town centre, it is actually a well-connected town, you can commute from here to Liverpool really easily and people might want to live here.

"I touched on the assets we have in the town from the Lowe House Church right through to the Gamble Building, Beecham’s the town hall the world of glass, the canal which is the oldest working canal in the country. People think that the Bridgewater canal is the oldest canal but this was opened four years before it should be a focal point in the town in the future.

"We want to shrink back to town centre back to somewhere people want to spend time in but link it to things like the Dream and Stadium, things just outside the immediate town centre providing reasons for people to come to the town centre and the assets we have around there.

"We want to develop this education quarter we are in now, this is a fantastic campus and we need to capitalise on this to make people want to come to the town and spend more time here. The footfall this campus generates could be used to drive economic growth in the town centre as a whole.

"We want to develop to civic and heritage quarter right from George Street through to Victoria Square where the town hall is based, we need to animate this part of town and use it more than we have in the past.

"Look for commercial opportunities within the town hall itself and really make it a place where people will spend time.

"We recognise that shopping is important so what we said about shopping habits changing doesn’t mean there will be no retail in the town centre but it has to be a different offer to what we’ve had before.

"We need to encourage more independents and food and drink offer and something where people come to the town and stay and shop afterwards that’s the objective of the quarter area.

"Most importantly is the growth quarter, the area where we want to take more control. We have the canal, we have the World of Glass and the assets around it. We need to develop that part of town to make it completely different to what is there today. Give people a reason to come to St Helens more often.

"That’s the scale of ambition we have this is about redevelopment of large swathes of the town centre capital costs well in excess of £100 to £200 potentially £300 million.

"A completely new offer that St Helens has not had in the past. A nod back to our heritage using glass structures in our town centre. Pilkington’s are in the room they invented the production processes for sheet glass yet there are no references of that in this town centre but in various town and city centres around Europe you can find glass canopies where markets and cultural activities take place. St Helens should be the home of those.

"And build around the canal head, that’s the asset that we have underutilised for many many years.

"So, canal side regeneration, many places around Europe use their waterways to drive their regeneration. Eamon described this last week as the Albert Dock of St Helens it needs to have that level of ambition.

"This town's motto is Ex Terra Lucem meaning from the earth comes light we need to capture that in what we do in the years ahead.

"We need to improve the public realm around the town, have animated spaces again linked to glass and light theme and we have looked at what other places have achieved, we need to aim as high as they have.

"Some are calling it the SHAC the St Helens arts and cultural centre where there is a daytime offer and an evening offer and a night time offer around which bars and restaurants can develop and receive their income through.

"Something we have not got now that will keep people coming here that isn’t retail based and trying to attract people to live in the town centre.

"The council is master planning areas at the edge of the town centre and are actively looking at purchasing land on the edge of the town centre to take control and offer a new housing offer.

"2018 is a significant year the borough was incorporated 150 years ago and we need to use this op to raise our game and promote the town to a far wider audience.

"Timescales. This will not happen overnight, to deliver a new urban form in the town centre does mean demolition and complete rebuilds of town it will be 2022 and 2024 that’s why this is a blueprint over the years ahead but some of those projects can be delivered more quickly so our aim is for some of the projects and initial work as early as next year and see some urban structures by 2020.

"This is an ambitious project for the town and it is about turning the town around. When we say taking control we mean active intervention because if we don’t we will be managing decline over the years ahead.

"We absolutely need the businesses of the borough to support us in that process because it is about changing perception as well and encouraging more people to come here that perhaps don’t come here today."