3) Consultation findings to date

Vision Bolsover

3.1  Work commenced on the preparation of the Shirebrook Growth Plan in March 2022 and an Initial Consultation Exercise ran between 1st and 31st March 2022.

3.2  This consultation exercise followed a digital, mobile first, approach that sought to engage with people living or working in Shirebrook to find out what they thought about living and / or working in Shirebrook, and their thoughts on the town centre and on the wider environment.

3.3  During this exercise, we received 165 responses although not all respondents provided answers on all four parts of the consultation subjects. The results are summarised below.

Living in Shirebrook

3.4  The first part of the consultation focussed on what it is like ‘Living in Shirebrook’, and the received responses can be summarised as follows:

• 42% of the respondents had a ‘neutral’ feeling about living in Shirebrook (not good or bad), with 25% having a ‘good’ feeling and 19% with a ‘bad’ feeling.
• 59% of the respondents liked living in Shirebrook because of the good access to green space and the countryside.
• 73% of the respondents did not like the quality of the town centre and Market Place.
• 47% of the respondents wanted better shops and services in the town centre.
• In terms of types of new housing, 35% of the respondents wanted new housing of all types for local people, 31% wanted affordable homes and 31% wanted new market housing.
• 88 individual comments were made in the free text box covering a variety of issues. Common themes were fear of crime and anti-social behaviour; the town looking rundown; little to do in the town for the younger generation; and a lack of quality shops and pubs/restaurants.

Working in Shirebrook

3.5  The second part of the consultation focussed on what it is like ‘Working in Shirebrook’, and the received responses can be summarised as follows:

• In terms of why respondents liked working in Shirebrook, 52% said it was because they could walk or cycle to work and 48% said it was because they lived close to their job.
• 30% of the respondents did not like working in Shirebrook because of limited car parking in their place of work, and 27% did not like the poor public transport.
• 50% of the respondents wanted better and more frequent public transport to get to work, and 27% of respondents wanted better cycle routes and pedestrian routes to work.
• 52% of the respondents wanted more jobs in retail and 25% professional services.
• In terms of what could be done to improve respondents working lives, 28 respondents (20%) wanted more flexible hours, 23 respondents (17%) wanted to walk or cycle to work and 22 respondents (18%) wanted more places to go at lunchtime and after work.

Town Centre and Market Place

3.6  The third part of the consultation focussed on the Shirebrook’s Town Centre and Market Place, and the received responses can be summarised as follows:  

• In terms of why respondents liked the town centre and Market Place, 45 respondents (51%) said it was because they liked the availability of car parking, 29 (32%) said it was because they liked the convenient bus stops in their town centre. 
• 81% of respondents disliked the poor choice of shops and services, 61% disliked unpleasant shopping environment, and 60% disliked ‘traffic entering square’.  
• In terms of what respondents thought could be done to improve the environment of the town and local centre, 33% said they wanted a better-quality market and 32% said they wanted higher quality paving and street furniture. 
• In addition, 36% of respondents said they wanted more events in the town centre, 26% said they wanted a greater variety of shops, 18% said they wanted more pubs / restaurants and 15% said they wanted better markets. 
• The town centre and Market Place was the most commented about part of the town in the Map based comments section, where 26 individual comments were received. 

Green Spaces and the Countryside

3.7  The fourth part of the consultation focussed on Shirebrook’s Green Spaces and the Countryside, and the received responses can be summarised as follows:  

• 65% of the respondents liked their green spaces because they were good for recreational walking; 46% thought they were good for kicking a ball around; and 43% felt they were well maintained. 
• 59% of the respondents disliked their green spaces due to poor quality Equipped Play Areas; 39% poor maintenance; and 19% poor for recreational walking. 
• In terms of countryside footpaths, 52% of the respondents thought there were lots of walking routes; 41% thought there were ‘some’ walking routes, and 39% of respondents thought that some were good quality routes.  
• In terms of cycle routes, 35% of the respondents felt that there were ‘some’ cycle paths, 33% thought there were ‘few’ cycle paths and 20% felt that only ‘some’ were of a good quality. 
• In terms of combatting the effects of climate change, 43% of respondents said ‘more solar panels’ were needed, and 39% of respondents said ‘more tree planting’ was needed. 

Summary

3.8  This new and more digital form of engagement saw greater levels of public involvement. Furthermore, it is considered that the responses provided during the Initial Consultation Exercise told us that:  

• Shirebrook is a reasonable place to live, largely because it has good access to the countryside.  In terms of types of new housing, large proportions of the respondents wanted new housing of all types for local people, including affordable homes and new market housing.  

• Shirebrook is a reasonable place to work, largely because respondents could walk or cycle to work. In terms of improving working opportunities, large proportions of the respondents wanted better and more frequent public transport and better cycle routes and pedestrian routes to get to work. In addition, half of the respondents wanted more jobs in retail and professional services.    

• The majority of respondents did not like the quality of the town centre and Market Place, saying it had a poor choice of shops and services, an unpleasant shopping environment with too much traffic entering the square. To improve the town centre and Market Place, large proportions of the respondents said that a better-quality market was needed and that higher quality paving and street furniture, more events and a greater variety of shops should be considered.    

• Shirebrook has good green spaces and countryside footpaths and cycle routes but that these could be improved. To combat the effects of climate change, large proportions of the respondents said ‘more solar panels’ were needed and that ‘more tree planting’ was needed. 

3.9  This feedback informed the Council’s work on the preparation of the Shirebrook Growth Plan and the next stage of public engagement.

Masterplanning Consultation Exercise

3.10  The second stage of consultation focussed on masterplanning and sought to find out what the people of Shirebrook and other stakeholders thought any potential growth in Shirebrook could look like.

3.11  To enable this public engagement to take place, the Council worked in partnership with The Future Fox, a PropTech digital planning company, to develop a new, innovative and nationally commended Masterplanning digital planning tool. This work was funded using money from the Government’s PropTech Innovation Fund and the created Masterplanning digital planning tool helped participants explore how large development sites are designed, what features or components they could include and play with the trade-offs between elements that generate income for the developer and those that cost money.

3.12  To facilitate this consultation exercise, one of the sites around Shirebrook that had been promoted to the Council through the Land Availability Assessment ‘Call for Sites’, namely the large area of land to the west of Shirebrook, was chosen as the ‘blank canvas’ for the masterplanning exercise. This site was chosen because it was large enough to allow for a realistic masterplanning exercise to take place, involving several different lands uses that wouldn’t be possible or feasible on a smaller site.

3.13  During this exercise, over 500 people used the Masterplanning digital planning tool and we received 94 formal submissions showing the types of land uses that people thought any growth in Shirebrook should include.

Thoughts on land uses that should be included in any additional growth

3.14  Respondents had a wide range of land uses that they could add to their masterplan and they were not prevented from using some or all of the different land use types. They could also add as many or as few land use tiles on to their masterplan as they wanted with the aim of respondents being free to tell the Council what types of land uses that any additional growth in Shirebrook should contain.

3.15  The Masterplanning digital planning tool did include a financial element so that respondents could explore how certain types of land use generate income or have costs to deliver. This was used to give a sense of realism to the creation of their masterplan and respondents were encouraged to ‘balance their books’ and so explore the trade-offs when planning new development, although again they could choose to ignore this aspect if they wished. The table below shows the total number of icons placed by land use type from all 94 submissions.

  

Income Uses	No	Infrastructure Uses	No
Market Housing	132	Roads	223
Shopping Area	118	Nature Site	112
Social Housing	86	Solar / Wind Farm	103
Eco Homes	81	Woodland	70
Offices	57	Leisure	58
Total Income Uses	474	Green Space	49
		GP Surgery	42
		Western Park	37
		Recycling Centre	34
		Sports Playing Pitch	27
		Primary School	27
		Skills College	26
		Total Infrastructure Uses	808

3.16  As can be seen, the table above identifies that market housing and shopping areas were the most frequently chosen income generating land uses and that roads, nature sites and solar / wind farms were the most frequently chosen infrastructure expenditure land uses. Whilst these cannot be considered to be a definitive set of preferred land uses within any additional growth proposals for Shirebrook, this feedback is of value and should inform the masterplanning proposals of any future growth in Shirebrook.