Meeting to discuss future of Frodsham College site

Feb 27 2009 by Barry Ellams, Chester Chronicle

COMMUNITY leaders want a greater say in shaping plans for land going spare at Frodsham High School after a new community health and social care centre is built there.

The school will close this summer and site owners Cheshire County Council have released part of it for the development of a multi-million pound health centre which Western Cheshire PCT hopes to open next year. Frodsham Leisure Centre will also stay on the site.

Although the future of the rest of the site remains uncertain, Frodsham Town Council wants to have a say in how it could be used to benefit the community – and councillors are calling on the county council to think beyond suggestions of filling the spare land with new houses.

The town council is seeking a special meeting with the county council’s head of facilities and assets manager, Noel O’Neill; and Strategic Property Advisor, Margaret Sumner.

Cheshire West and Chester Shadow Authority councillor Andrew Dawson said: “This is a large site coming up for development and we should not just think in terms of housing.”

“This is an opportunity to link a vocational college in with the health centre and leisure centre, and some of the school site could be used to widen Alvanley Terrace and the other footpath running between the school and the railway track to create a designated cycle path from Eddisbury Square to Castle Park.”

Town councillor Lynn Riley, a member of the PCT steering group for the health centre development, said the county council master plan for the school site includes a part allocated for “future unspecified housing.”

She said: “I would personally welcome some housing provision for older people and single-person occupancy.”

Frodsham resident Kath Povall has written to the town council asking if there was any chance the high school hall and stage could be left standing and retained as a community facility.