What You Have Told Us

In December 2010 we held our first engagement event for the One City Plan to which we invited a broad mixture of people involved in the City. Using a number of interactive focus group workshops we asked participants to consider:  

• What are Chester’s good and bad places, where is popular, where do people avoid and where should be redeveloped?  We asked participants to locate these places on a plan of the city.

We then asked participants to consider:

• If you could state a priority for change for Chester – what would it be? We asked participants to locate these priorities on a plan of the city.

Participants told us their top priorities for the city:

• Improve quality of life for Chester’s residents – support affordable housing, ensure good health, generate employment opportunities, create a better balance
  between residents and visitor priorities and attract new residents into the city centre (particularly families).
• Improve sustainable movement, accessibility, the ‘visitor welcome’ and way-finding (links to rail station, to the zoo, and encourage ‘green travel’) including
  developing new bus facilities, reducing congestion, making best use of the waterways, removal of the underpasses, and upgrading public toilets.
• Create a unique and specialised retail offer – supporting local traders, which invests in and capitalises on the fantastic asset of The Rows.
• Diversify the twilight and evening economy – encourage a vibrancy with a mix of leisure and cultural opportunities, which is safe, improves Chester’s
  reputation, and provides a broad family offer.
• Make better use of Chester’s public spaces to host a wider range of social, cultural and festival events.
• Encourage investment in Chester’s green spaces and recreational assets including Grosvenor Park, the city walls and the River Dee waterside.
• Generate investment to improve the scope, quality and management of Chester’s historic, cultural and heritage assets to safeguard them for current and
  future generations, enhance the city’s reputation and encourage tourism and increased visitor spending.
• Improve signage, accessibility and create a higher quality environment for residents and visitors.