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The Big Town Plan
Castleford
The West Yorkshire town of Castleford has recently been thrust into the national spotlight as a major urban renewal plan led by TV presenter Kevin McCloud was televised on Channel 4.
 Kevin McCloud and The Big Town Plan introduced the viewer to several regeneration projects in Castleford which are part of an overall improvement programme for the town.
The last five years have seen a series of different projects across the town, including the design of a new town square, several new facilities for children and the design and build of a major new footbridge.
The Big Town Plan was actually founded by Channel 4, local community and civic groups and Wakefield Metropolitan District Council.
The most ambitious of The Big Town Plan schemes is the new S-shaped pedestrian bridge over the River Aire.
 This was completed in July 2008 at a cost of £4.8 million. It will provide a safe, stylish crossing for those living on the north side of the river, and open up the previously-neglected riverside to potential investors, with possible transformation into a leisure and recreation area.
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 So why Castleford? The town was chosen for The Big Town Plan because of various reasons: local people are committed to making their town a better place, the town is easy to get to because of good motorway links and its proximity to the major centres of Wakefield and Leeds. Castleford also had already had substantial new investment in housing, leisure and retail in the years before the TV programme.
Castleford was essentially chosen for this project because of the quality of that work, the unusual pride people in Castleford have for their town and their unrivalled commitment to its future.
The regeneration of Castleford is the most ambitious plan that designer Kevin McCloud has become involved in to date.
 Asked how he got involved with the project, he said: “We started filming in 2002 and 2003, but I was already involved in 2001, when we started making visits to towns across Britain. We were looking for places that were already on the cusp of doing something about their grimness. We looked at quite a few, but in the end we chose Castleford because the community wanted to take on work, and their goals were not ridiculous but were exciting, such as the new bridge and the town centre. Importantly, it was all community-based and low key.
“We didn’t want to go where there were developers. We wanted to be able to measure the transformation of the lives of the people there. We wanted to see whether beautifully designed projects could transform people’s lives.
 “I think in terms of the personal reactions of residents, it has been regenerative – I’ve noticed a change. They’re very direct, the people of Castleford. They’re very sceptical. One bloke said to me, ‘It’ll never work’.
Even with the finished bridge they were saying it would be useless. Many people are now realising they are going to have to eat their words. It’s because as a community, they’ve been badly let down over the past 50 years. Now they’ve got real results.
“The people of Castleford are strongly attached to their town and now they feel proud of it.”
So that’s the Castleford of today and the future - a town with regenerated areas and a population approaching 40,000 according to the latest available census figures.
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