Proposal to regenerate Leys 'could take years' (From The Oxford Times)

Proposal to regenerate Leys 'could take years'

9:30am Monday 11th March 2013 in News

COMPLETING a full regeneration of Blackbird Leys will take years and needs to be done in a measured fashion if the funding can be found, Oxford City Council said last night.

On Friday, the Oxford Mail reported the council and its partners were progressing towards starting smaller schemes as the first steps of its overall plans to improve the estate.

One area that may eventually be targeted is improving the Blackbird Leys Road shopping parade, but the council said larger scale projects such as this would depend on a lot of work to determine if they were economically viable and would require finding enough funding.

City council spokeswoman Louisa Dean said: “It is important to understand that overall regeneration can be a long term exercise that comprises some short term projects and some that could take much longer.

“Smaller short term projects include parking, Spindleberry Park and the planned upgrade of tower blocks, but things involving new roads or major redevelopment tend to take longer, perhaps several years.

“It is also important to remember that the money could come from a variety of sources.

“There is no overall pot as such. We will need to look at projects on a one by one basis and look at mixing and matching funding from a variety of sources.”

Thursday’s story said Alan Baxter Associates would oversee much of the regeneration, but the company is only developing a parking and small spaces strategy.

This is focusing on improving the parking set-up in Peregrine Road, Monks Close/Nunnery Close, Blackbird Leys Road, Kestrel Crescent, Crowberry Road and Field Crescent.