In 2004, style guru Wayne Hemingway and a team of urban planners visited Whitehaven to draw up a radical blueprint for the town and its development over the next 15 years. Andrew Clarke revisits what the planners thought of us – and what became of their vision...“WHITEHAVEN can be a really nice town,” said Wayne Hemingway, back in 2004. “Some people don’t like the word ‘nice’ – but I do. It’s good to be nice.”

Hemingway – with a background in cutting edge fashion and an enthusiasm for good design – was in Whitehaven with the Broadway Malyan team to see what made the town tick, and how it could best be developed.

They looked at everything about Whitehaven: its history, economy, community, architecture, landscape, road network, facilities and culture.

Hemingway, pictured right, found there was a lot to admire about the town. He particularly liked St Nicholas’ Gardens, the Castle, the “stunning” harbour and the Georgian architecture. A priority was to better link the harbourside and the market place, he felt.

He also knew what he didn’t like: some of the “negative signage saying ‘don’t do this or don’t do that’.”

He also thought there was some way to go to making people welcome to the town at its main entrances.

“The gateways are disappointing,” he said. “It needs a sense of arrival and something that lifts your spirits.

“When you arrive at one end, you have some ugly billboards and a not very nice looking Tesco. When you arrive at the Castle end, there is an architecturally-challenged retail park with a plethora of signs. You could be in small town America – fast food and cheap shop city.”

Specific proposals that emerged from what became the report, a Sea Change: Whitehaven Town Centre, included:

a new leisure and cultural quarter from Bransty Gate to Bulwark Quay, including a new hotel in the former bus station

an improved and extended retail quarter on site of original fishing village around Quay Street

improvements to the town’s major green-scapes and the creation of a new park on the Mount Pleasant terraces ‘The Hanging Gardens’.

re-alignment of the one-way system away from The Strand and Tangier Street

improvements to all major footpath links and the re-alignment of the C2C through ‘the Playground’.

So what has been achieved in the intervening 10 years?

Elaine Woodburn, leader of Copeland Council, says that despite a downturn in finances since the report was published, the council has achieved a number of its objectives.

She said: “The report has formed the basis of all partner plans for Whitehaven since, and has certainly provided the backbone of the council’s regeneration framework.”

Coun Woodburn points to a number of projects guided by the report, including the construction of Albion Square and Pears House; improvement work at Mount Pleasant and the Civic Quarter; the demolition of the bus station and depot; upgrade of the multi-storey; and the ongoing Townscape Heritage Initiative (including the conversion of the former YMCA into Whitehaven Foyer).

Coun Woodburn adds that planning permission has been awarded by the council – although work has not yet been completed – to develop a hotel on the Mark House/Park nightclub site, and that plans for a transport interchange/gateway at Tesco only fell down when Cumbria County Council withdrew.

She said: “Given the withdrawal of public funding, I consider there to be a successful story of activity that was conceived in this report and to the credit of this council in the most difficult of times.”