THRIVING PEOPLE AND COMMUNITIES

Vision For Connectivity And Accessibility

Chester will prioritise the people that live in our city and surrounding neighbourhoods to ensure that both the physical infrastructure and supporting services enable everyone to thrive.

Context

The One City Plan consultation identified that Chester should develop a clear strategy to increase the number of city centre residents. This should include a review of current housing stock and redevelopment of existing sites to create a residential offer that is both sustainable and diverse. The process should consider the needs of all age groups, prioritising the provision of health, education, and wellbeing. This will also include the opportunities to repurpose and convert existing buildings, including the upper floors of the historic Rows to create distinctive and sustainable homes for the future. It should also encourage consultation and collaboration with citizens through community placemaking.

Like many historic settlements in the UK, in addition to having unique strengths, Chester has long-standing social challenges. Social challenges exist within and around the city with some experiencing poor health, vulnerability, and low qualifications, alongside economic challenges including poverty. As a unique city with communities of differing needs, we must consider how to support individuals and create communities that people are proud to live in.

We must deliver a housing strategy which tackles the homelessness crisis, providing supported housing schemes and pathways out of homelessness that are reflective of the needs of homeless people, and which seeks to end rough-sleeping on Chester’s streets.

We must continue to invest in regeneration schemes that enable local residents, community organisations and the private sector to reimagine their neighbourhoods. This is an opportunity to reimagine the types and mix of uses to bring forward exemplar placemaking schemes that deliver sustainable benefits to local residents.

Chester’s residents should be able to take pride in their city and be active in its evolution. We want to encourage the city to ‘live’ rather than simply exist, to be of the highest quality, repositioned as a contemporary city that lives up to its residents’ and visitors’ expectations.

We need to prioritise the health and wellbeing of children and young people, alongside their education. This will ensure all Cestrians have a fair start in life. This should include access to good schools, youth services, and healthcare.

As an age-friendly city, Chester will enable people at all stages of life to actively participate in community activities, to access local services and to be treated with respect, regardless of their age.

We want to create sustainable communities across the city, with a variety and diversity of property types which support a broader range of needs and are influenced by the concept of a ‘15 minute’ city.

The opportunities to improve the quality of housing and community placemaking should be spread across all the neighbourhoods of the city. Active engagement with residents should be undertaken and opportunities to invest in more sustainable, lower carbon adaptations and to look at the housing needs of communities and address any gaps in provision wherever possible.

Cities are first and foremost the meeting places of people, of cultures and of life. Because culture and life is not about buildings, but about the life and happenings between them and the opportunities such places and spaces create for activity and social interaction. A successful city establishes a sense of place – determined by the surrounding physical environment, its history and the people acting out their lives in it today. By effectively defining, encouraging, and investing in such a sense of place, culture and history, people are drawn to live, work, learn and play.

Chester already has such a strong sense of place – defined by its rich architectural, archaeological, and historical environment, which creates a unique identity. As a result, the city has become a rich mixture of citizens and visitors – each wanting to share in the culture of the city.

What Cestrians Say

Fundamentally you can see towns, cities, and the world changing. If places aren’t compelling to live, work and visit, that will have a fundamental effect on the economics and welfare of the area.

Participant in the One City Plan Consultation

We need to blur the lines between students and residents. The more they can be integrated as people living together the better.

Participant in the One City Plan Consultation