Formula for a forum on the Riverside 

For the latest news on the Riverside scheme see this Letter from Nantwich, reporting on the new footbridge, and this one about trees

The plans and photographs used on this website are with the kind permission of Alderman Doug Butterill. They are the copyright of all parties involved in the scheme.    lBack to the letter. 

THIS is the riverside scheme as seen in the plans drawn up for the Nantwich Forum-led consortium by Bower Edleston, the Nantwich architects as a Conceptual Vision. Consultation sessions on the scheme on this page were held in June 2005. 

   The scheme on the left covers the riverside from near to the Beam Bridge sluice gate down to the Nantwich Lake. 

   The one that interests me most is the "northern section" (not its official title) because it contains two alternative sites for the visitors' centre (8), coloured red. The top one is the "behind-the-baths (10)" site while the lower one is on Mill Island. 

 The three photographs below are taken from Bower Edleston's scheme plan and show how the visitors' centre might look. It is not at all

 the large building I imagined when I heard how much was supposed to go into it.

Presumably, the picture left is the visitors' centre as seen over the footbridge from the car park and development area - it wouldn't appear to be the current Mill Island entrance . . . 

Area 9 on the map is the "potential development site" which I feel could be a useful car park - as it is at the moment! A new footbridge is marked 7.

   Other features on this area of the scheme are: 11, boat hire; 6, fishing platform (in an area known as The Willows, where the river was diverted around the mill and the main channel went on to become the mill race); and 3, a wheelchair-accessible footbridge.  

Although the drawings are not captioned on the plan, this has to be a restaurant in the centre.

Continuing the scheme with the middle section of the plan, we have: 2, car park; 4, play area; 5, woodland walks; 12, the airman's grave; and 13, improved walkway (llll). The "southern section" covers a picnic area by Nantwich Lake (1) and the existing car park (2).

I am not sure what the picture of the centre, on the left, shows as there are no "hills" in the riverside area! Perhaps it is an introduced bank - or an idea borrowed from another scheme!