Pembrokeshire County Council recently published their vision for the future of Haverfordwest. Our response, which can be downloaded here, welcomes the Council’s recognition of the important role the arts can play in regeneration, but goes further in asking questions about the way this plan will be realised:
We welcome the masterplan proposals as a significant step forward toward what could be a shared vision for Haverfordwest that the community can take part in, and feel they have ownership of. We also believe this is a continuing process, and that the masterplanning exercise is just the beginning of a long-term plan to be implemented over the next decade.
We see this is a fantastic opportunity for Haverfordwest, and the people who live and work here, to have a say in shaping its future. But how do we get there?
- How can we progress the vision in practice?
- What are the keys to successful regeneration?
- Who should be responsible?
We feel an essential key is continued community engagement, and a transparency that genuinely involves local people in positive change:
With so much change in recent years, we must now address the basic questions of who and what town centres are for? Asking ourselves such questions could in turn offer an opportunity for reinventing our town centre.
How do we get from a “masterplan” to a “people’s plan”?
It’s a continuing experiment…