January 2020
Wakefield Civic Society has been invited to join Wakefield’s newly established Town Deal Board. The Board, part of Wakefield’s High Street Task Force, is made up of representatives from Wakefield’s public, private and third sector organisations and will support Wakefield Council as it develops a strategy to facilitate revitalisation of the city centre. The Board will also assist the council in attracting new inward investment, including grant applications under the Future High Streets Fund, Heritage Action Zone and Towns Fund initiatives.
The Board will oversee the development and subsequent implementation of a city centre masterplan while ensuring a diverse range of voices and perspectives are fed into the discussions.
Wakefield Civic Society president Kevin Trickett MBE, who will represent the Society on the Board, said that he was delighted to take part and considered that the invitation extended to the Society was a tribute to the Society’s reputation for being a knowledgeable and constructive contributor to the ongoing discussions about how the city centre should develop. He added “The Society was established in 1964 and has been actively engaged in many of the debates about what should happen in Wakefield ever since. We recognise that cities have to evolve to take account of changing lifestyles and that we have to move with the times, but we also recognise that Wakefield has a fine range of historic buildings which we wish to see preserved even though they will often have to find new uses to meet the challenges of a modern city centre.”