St Annes town centre gets cash boost

11:25am Friday 4th April 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

St Annes will benefit from more than £300,000 of investment thanks to the work of Fylde Borough Council in securing a grant from the North West Development Agency.

The council has secured £200,000 of funding allocated by the NWDA via the Lancashire and Blackpool Tourist Board, ensuring the entire pot of money allocated for capital schemes across Lancashire will be coming to benefit St Annes.

A further figure of more than £100,000 will come from a variety of agencies including the Borough and County Councils, English Heritage and the private sector.

The money will allow improvement works to take place in two areas of the town.

Along Garden Street improvements will include new street lighting and improved paving incorporating artistic panels featuring heritage motifs designed to match the decorative stone work in other areas of the town.

This project will create a link created between the refurbished and award-winning Town Centre and Ashton Gardens, which is itself benefiting regeneration thanks to the council's work in securing Heritage Lottery funding.

The second part of the development will see new street lighting installed on the promenade through funding from Lancashire County Council, as well as forecourt enhancements and decorative lighting around the pier.

The pier itself has recently had a new canopy installed and the private company who own it are spending over £1million on improvements to the infrastructure to ensure the future of the landmark.

Councillor Roger Small, Cabinet Member for Development and Regeneration, said: "We are highly delighted about this grant which is a real vote-of confidence in the quality regeneration activity in Fylde and the plans we have for the town to attract visitors and make it a better place for residents to live.

"Coupled with private sector investments by the St Annes Pier company, JR Taylor and others these projects will further enhance the look and feel of the town.

"This is all excellent news for the town and the Borough and we hope this will be the first of a series of announcements about investments in our infrastructure to allow improvements."

Work is likely to start later this year.