Salford Draft Local Plan Consultation Response from Friends of Walkden Station March 2019 Foreword Friends of Walkden Station (FOWS) are an award winning community voluntary group established to make practical environmental improvements to the station and to lobby constructively and effectively for improved facilities and rail services. We are very pleased to respond to the Salford Draft Local Plan consultation. FOWS have enjoyed a good working relationship with Salford City Council over more than a decade, and we greatly value the progress that we have made through constructive engagement with the Council on a range of developments for the station. Some of our most important priorities, such as step free access and park and ride provision, may now be close to coming to fruition. We are now looking to the future. Introduction FOWS endorse the need to produce a coherent and effective Local Plan that sets out how we develop our city in the years to come. We need to be both ambitious and realistic, to ensure that we can look to a future where the whole of Salford benefits from a better, fairer and more prosperous city, with greater opportunities for all. As a group focused on our railways, our response will mainly focus on the transport elements of the plan, and how transport in general, and railways in particular, can provide the fast, efficient and low carbon connectivity that our city will need. We will be making some new proposals which we feel will offer a once in a generation opportunity to deliver transformational change for our transport network in Salford. This is especially focused on regeneration benefits for some of our most challenged neighbourhoods. We have taken care to align our proposals with plans for residential, industrial and leisure developments that are highlighted in the revised Salford Draft Local Plan (SDLP) and also to align with similar proposals in the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework (GMSF). We note that local communities may produce Neighbourhood Plans under the Localism Act 2011 (para 1.8). As our proposals are mainly focused on the Walkden and Little Hulton areas, particularly in terms of regeneration, such a Plan may further reinforce their benefits, for example we believe that they fulfil the criteria of SCC’s strategic policies on accessibility as listed in Annex E. Executive Summary We believe that Walkden and its catchment area have great untapped potential which needs to be harnessed and developed to transform this part of Salford. Within our response we propose two schemes for the West Salford area that introduce light rail Metrolink style technology to enhance, not replace, one of our city's busiest railway corridors. We believe our proposals are very closely aligned to the City Council's stated 2 objectives with greater benefits than could be achieved by replacing heavy rail services through Walkden. We also make recommendations to raise the profile of Walkden and increase prosperity in our area west Salford. Taken together, the benefits of our proposals include:- • Transformational improvements to public transport in Little Hulton, one of Greater Manchester's most deprived districts • Aligning transport infrastructure to residential and industrial developments proposed for west Salford • Promoting a fairer Salford by spreading investment more evenly throughout the city, especially in deprived areas • Promoting a healthier Salford by providing safer routes for walking and cycling and promoting public transport usage, leading to a low carbon future • Improving Walkden’s facilities and accessibility to create a thriving town which is an attractive place to live and work • Reducing the strain on already congested roads in the Worsley area by facilitating and encouraging inter-regional rail patronage to a major North West tourist attraction • Enabling rail-based options for mass movement of people and goods between Logistics North, West Salford, and the city centre • Protecting rail services via Bolton and via the Chat Moss line from an influx of passengers displaced by loss of fast direct trains between Wigan and Manchester • Preserving the Wigan to Manchester via Walkden railway as an invaluable diversionary route, and protecting its direct connectivity to destinations across the North to allow greater opportunities for residents of west Salford to access jobs, education and leisure facilities throughout the area We commend this response to you and await your feedback. 3 Salford Draft Local Plan and the Salford Rail Strategy We acknowledge that the SDLP is designed to align closely with GMSF but have serious concerns that it does not align with the excellent Salford Rail Strategy (SRS) adopted by Salford City Council in 2018. The SDLP endorses proposals with significant negative consequences for Walkden and for wider connectivity to, from and through west Salford to other parts of the city region and beyond. The previous version of this plan did not contain those proposals, in particular the possibility of complete replacement of heavy rail services on the Walkden line with a partly on street rapid transit alternative. This suggestion had been carefully considered and rejected by the SRS and we understood the SRS would inform the rail elements of SDLP. This does not appear to have been the case, which we find hugely disappointing. We will set out our concerns, and alternative proposals to achieve Salford’s development objectives, in detail later in this response. We have provided Transport for Greater Manchester with a very detailed response to the draft Transport Strategy 2020-2025 Delivery Plan, and also responded to the GMSF consultation. Our response to the SDLP is closely aligned with these. Spatial Portrait We consider that west Salford has huge economic and tourist potential. The area is sometimes undervalued and overlooked, especially areas to the north and west of the catchment area of Walkden station. We disagree with this negative view and believe the area is similar in its potential to other areas of Greater Manchester such as Withington and Chorlton which were once regarded in similar terms. Walkden has (or potentially can have) all of the ingredients required to be a very desirable place to live and work. Central to this is its excellent transport connectivity, a key priority of FOWS. There are however concentrations of deprivation in some neighbourhoods such as Little Hulton and Eccles which share similar challenges to large parts of the centre of the conurbation. (para 2.3) Our proposals would have a transformational effect on the regeneration of Little Hulton in particular and have been carefully designed with this principle aim in mind. Rail infrastructure that is vital to the functioning of the wider network - this transport infrastructure provides direct links to Leeds and Liverpool, and Manchester Airport, which is just 10 miles to the south of the city (para 2.5) Walkden currently enjoys direct rail connectivity to Leeds, the Calder Valley, the principal towns in east Lancashire, and to Merseyside (direct services to Southport, and to Liverpool with one change at Wigan or Kirkby). Replacement of rail services by a localised tram-train 4 only service would break many of these connections. There is potential to increase the current range of destinations still further (for example to Blackpool and Bradford), however our main gap is the lack of direct services to Oxford Road, Piccadilly and Manchester Airport which may not necessarily be resolved by rapid transit alternatives either. Numbers of inward visitors to Salford will be significantly boosted by the major new RHS Garden Bridgewater development planned to open in Worsley in 2020. We wish to see visitors using rail wherever possible to reach the Garden by sustainable means, with the station at Walkden serving as a fitting gateway and bus and cycle links providing reliable connections. This requires connectivity across the wider region (and the North) to be enhanced - not reduced - or the Garden will be overwhelmingly accessed by private cars. We have also designed our proposals to significantly enhance connectivity by public transport from Salford to the rapidly growing Logistics North employment area. Although just over the border into Bolton, Logistics North is a large source of employment for neighbouring parts of Salford, some of which are are relatively deprived and have low car ownership. By promoting regeneration in our most deprived areas, our proposals will help to tackle the key challenges listed in paragraph 2.14 (page 21), much more effectively than the plans currently contained in the SDLP, especially by means of better transport connectivity. Spatial Vision Over the next 20 years, Salford will continue its evolution into a modern global city, and one of the best business and residential locations in the country. This will involve high levels of economic growth, with significant increases in the number of jobs, residents and visitors. The approach will be to continue to accommodate this growth in the most sustainable way (para 3.3, page 22) This is particularly relevant to the catchment area of Walkden station, with major new housing developments proposed, the expanding employment area at Logistics North, and huge tourism potential provided by the RHS Garden Bridgewater. Our proposals seek to deliver sustainable transport connectivity to deliver this, and to make this part of Salford a fantastic place to live, work, visit and invest. We note that there is an emphasis on further strengthening the key business districts of the city centre and Media City. This is important for Salford as a whole but care should be taken not to concentrate the focus on development there to such a degree that existing potential in other parts of Salford is not fulfilled. City centre developments need to be affordable and accessible to Salfordians, and not just an opportunity for outside investors to benefit. Investment will also be directed towards the significant pockets of deprivation elsewhere in the city.