I’m Su Fitzpatrick, I am a Lecturer in Human Geography at York St John University. Days of the New Town is a research project which focuses on the area of Birchwood within the town of Warrington in the North West of England. As I will outline below, I am interested in questions of how sense of place has been understood, by the design team behind Birchwood, and by its residents. This project does not seek to illustrate whether the place is ‘successful’ in economic or any other terms. It uses a range of methods to help me and others understand something deeper about the relationship between those who design places and those who live in them.
Warrington was designated as a ‘partnership’ New Town by central government in 1968. It was thought that due to its spectacularly handy location, sitting at a key intersection on the nation’s motorway and railway infrastructure, it would be an effective ‘growth point’ for the North West region. The areas which would be developed would connect to the existing ‘old town’, hence ‘partnership New Town, as opposed to New Towns built as single developments designed to link to a nearby city such as Milton Keynes to London or Cumbernauld to Glasgow. The mechanism for the delivery and management of all the New Towns built in the UK was the ‘Development Corporation’. These were funded by way of a loan from central government which the Development Corporation would pay back with interest once the value of the land under their stewardship had been raised and made profitable. Warrington New Town Development Corporation (WNTDC) developed five areas across Warrington: Westbrook; Great Sankey; parts of the Town Centre and Padgate in addition to Birchwood. I have focused on Birchwood largely because I am sole researcher on this project and I have taken on what I think I can manage.
I should add that the fact I grew up in Birchwood meant that I was making my “home town” the subject of the research. With this research I am asking whether resident’s sense of belonging is different in New Towns to other kinds of places. For example, in the early days of any New Town, a whole population moves from elsewhere and all are trying to find the reference points to be able to navigate their new everyday lives. These reference points might be geographical in the sense of gaining one’s bearings, but there are also the social, political, cultural sets of reference points that people attempt to forge in those early days, which may or may not give way to a sense of place, and eventually perhaps belonging. These are the kinds of avenues of investigation I would like to consider with “early settler” residents of Birchwood, and I have begun that process through interviewing people and through the People’s Archive project, where I have asked residents to share their photographs, and other material they have kept from their earliest days living in Birchwood. I am also interviewing key members of the design and management team who made up The Warrington New Town Development Corporation. These interviews contribute towards another keystone of the research, which is to understand how the place of Birchwood has been understood differently by the designer/ architect one the one hand, and the resident on the other.
Days of the New Town has therefore developed into a project with a number of aims, one is to investigate how the change from the leadership/ management of Birchwood coming from the Development Corporation to Warrington Borough Council affected sense of place for residents. Another aspect of the evolution of the New Town which interests me is how the ecological planning approach has effected residents sense of place and sense of belonging. This was an approach taken up by David Scott, Chief Landscape Architect at the Development Corporation, and his then deputy Robert Tregay which can be understood as an attempt to place a residential area within a “natural” woodland setting. Of the areas the WNTDC developed, the ecological planning approach has found its fullest expression in Birchwood.
A further aim of the project is to share with the public the extensive Warrington New Town Development Corporation archive held by the Local Archive in Chester. To this end, there was an exhibition of photos from the archive at Warrington Museum and Art Gallery which ran in the Summer of 2018 and again in the Winter of 2018/19. I have begun the process of publishing on this blog the images and documents of the WNTDC archive made available to me through the assistance of the staff at the Local Archive in Chester, whose help and patience I would like to acknowledge here, also I am so grateful to Roger Jeffery who has given me the opportunity to exhibit archive photos at the Warrington Museum and Art Gallery. There are a number of other people who have contributed their time, insight and expertise to the project through agreeing to be interviewed by me. I acknowledge their help in the interview section of the blog.
Finally, the project aims to share the story of residents lives in Birchwood by asking residents to share their family photos for the exhibition and this blog under the People’s Archive section. I have asked people to share their experience and memories of Birchwood, their early impressions and how they think the place has matured in the 50 years since Warrington was designated a partnership New Town. If you are, or have been a resident of Birchwood and would like to share your perspective and experience, I would love to hear from you. You can contact me via the contact tab on this blog or via the facebook page: www.facebook.com/daysofthenewtown
Days of the New Town 