By Julian Whittle

Published at 11:48, Tuesday, 07 October 2008

SAVE Our Streets campaigners say the Rickergate area of Carlisle is being “blighted” by uncertainty over its long-term future.

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The city’s new Carlisle Renaissance board last month shelved controversial redevelopment plans.

Chairman Bryan Gray said the scheme for a plaza with shops, flats, offices and a four-star hotel was no longer “being pursued”.

But Carlisle City Council’s leader, Mike Mitchelson, later hinted that redevelopment could go ahead at a later date.

This has prompted the Save Our Streets group, which is opposed to the demolition of homes, to demand that Renaissance officials come clean with their intentions.

In a letter to Renaissance programme director Ian McNichol, the group says: “The continued uncertainty over the future of Rickergate is not helping local businesses here at all.

“It is also having a blighting effect on the sale of property in the area – something which the planning inspector in his report on the local plan inquiry was very clear should be avoided.

“We are also concerned about the future of the buildings of local historical interest.

“What kind of effect will this uncertainty have on the future of these buildings?”

The Rickergate scheme as originally put forward would have seen the demolition of the Civic Centre, police and fire stations, magistrates court, Adriano’s restaurant and homes in Warwick Street.

Mr Mitchelson told the News & Star’s sister newspaper, The Cumberland News, that it might still be pursued.

He said: “The Renaissance board has come to a view that Rickergate is not one of its four priorities.

“But that doesn’t mean to say the scheme is dead.

“Carlisle Renaissance is a 10-to-20-year agenda.

“We are committed to doing a development brief [for Rickergate]. All I’ve said to the council is that, at the current time, we’re not doing it but it will happen one day.”

The council was given £2m by the Northwest Regional Development Agency to buy up property in Rickergate with a view to redevelopment.

It acquired the freehold of Adriano’s Restaurant and one of the former fire station houses in Warwick Street.

Mr Mitchelson said the council would hang on to them as “strategic property purchases” in an area “identified for future development”.

JWhittle@cngroup.co.uk

Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk