Upcoming exhibition at Padgate Library Summer 2021

Padgate library was designed as part of the area’s New Town expansion in the 1970’s. To celebrate the Library’s re-opening, we are hosting a free exhibition all about Padgate’s experience of New Town expansion in the 1970’s and 80’s. Photographs from the Warrington and Runcorn Development Corporation archive have been digitised especially for the exhibition, but in addition, we are looking for your help to contribute your memories and your photos. Do you have photographs of neighbourhood life covering the late 1970’s up to the 1990’s that you are willing to share? Are you able to take a good quality picture of your photos and send them into the project? In addition, would you like to write down your memories and reflections and send them in to us so they can form part of the exhibition display? Whether it is your own personal recollections of the beginnings of the New Town era in the 1970’s, or those of older family members, or whether you would like to contribute your thoughts on how the new town expansion changed Padgate, we would like to hear from you. Please consider sending your responses to some or all of the questions below that apply to your experience as direct messages to the Days of the New Town facebook page: www.facebook.com/daysofthenewtown  alternatively go to the project blog: www.daysofthenewtown.wordpress.com and use the contact tab to leave your responses.

Did you move to Padgate during the New Town expansion of the 1970’s into the 1980’s? If so, can you recall what your first impressions were of the area? What attracted you to the area?

Were you or family existing residents of Padgate? How do you think the New Town expansion changed the area?

What did you think of the Development Corporation’s design for the residential areas and recreational green spaces of Padgate at the time in the 1970’s?

How do you think the Development Corporation’s design for the residential areas and recreational green spaces has evolved over time? Have they withstood the test of time?  

Do you mind being named in the exhibition as a contributor, or would you prefer your contributions to remain anonymous?

Would you be happy for Curator Su Fitzpatrick to contact you to follow up on any of your responses? If so, please consider leaving an email address or phone number.

Author: daysofthenewtown

I'm Susan Fitzpatrick, I am a lecturer in Human Geography at York St John University. My research interests revolve around how the idea of community is constructed in cultural, housing and regeneration policy. I am currently looking at the ways we can understand the evolution of the New Town in the UK, and how place making and identity intersect with the design principles of the New Town of Warrington, particularly the ecological planing approach pursued in the area of Birchwood.

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