The old High Street in Winsford used to be the main shopping street until the construction of the Winsford gyratory, a new roundabout near New Road, blocked it. Since 2019, 10 houses and 36 flats have been under construction on the site formerly occupied by The Greedy Pig. The site is located in a close just off New Road. Although it’s not the most attractive shopping street, the street parking and ability to open late for take-aways make up for it.

MP visits new Weaver Vale affordable homes in Winsford

The Winsford Cross shopping precinct that replaced the Old High Street, built in the 1970s, could be more visually appealing, with the rear of its shops facing the High Street. The architectural style is known as brutalist, but we’re hoping that the redevelopment project – set for completion in 2024 – will give us a more aesthetically pleasing view, like the successful Cheshire Oaks design. Perhaps the redevelopment will include shops with apartments above them to create a mixed-use development, as older shopping centres used to do. This move could help reduce out-of-hours anti-social behaviour.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-59980820

We were told in 1998 that the Cheshire West and Chester Council now owns the shopping centre, they paid £19.75 million for it, which seems very generous for the state Mar left it in. CWAC have begun a £21m redevelopment with the project scheduled for completion in 2024. Winsford has been awarded a £10m investment from the government’s ‘Levelling Up Future High Street Fund’

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/future-high-streets-fund in January.

If they don’t get on with the project soon that money could be lost we are warned. In January 2022 “Winsford’s £21m revamp will raise aspirations, councillor says”. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-59980820. We are not in Merseyside!

Sadly on 10th March 2023 the BBC told us; https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-64917638 that the proposed town centre revamp has been scaled down by inflation and has to be redesigned due to soaring costs, five years after Cheshire West and Chester council bought the shopping centre, in 2018 we were told CWAC had made £700,000 profit in a year following the purchase.

The redesign seems like a waste of money, and it makes us wonder why they weren’t planned in achievable stages with some private sector sales of shops to fund other buildings, as this council likes to do now with housing estates. We should start with phase one of the redesign and complete the rest as more money comes from new rentals.

The good news is that Cllr Nathan Pardoe has confirmed that the work is definitely starting in May 2023.