Warrington is a town with a long history and a future shaped by its
designation as a New Town in 1968. Over the last half century, the
landscape and lives of its inhabitants have changed dramatically. Older
residents of the former Lancashire industrial town barely recognise the
town of their youth, while incomers and younger residents only know life
in a thriving Cheshire centre with ambitions to be seen as a city.
During the last fifty years there have been major changes to the
demographic of the area and the built environment by creating new
communities and bringing former Lancashire and Cheshire villages within
the town, which has effectively trebled in size. The redundant Second
World War sites of Risley munitions works and the former military bases
at Burtonwood and Padgate have been redeveloped. Already some of the
townscape created in the 1980s as a result of the New Town plan is being
rebuilt, and by 2019 a new local plan will finalise the next stage of
redevelopment. Warrington: From New Town to New City? is based on a
community-wide local history project to create a permanent record of
these crucial years in the town's development. It will involve oral
history to capture the memories of those who remember the town from the
pre-1960 era or who were involved in the New Town planning, or saw their
area change drastically as a result. It will also capture the memories
and images of the New Town over the last fifty years and be a mixture of
official records and community contributions from old and young alike.
This fascinating book reveals Warrington's transformation from post-war
austerity to twenty-first-century prosperity through the extensive
photographic archive, records held by Culture Warrington and the
memories and family archives of Warringtonians themselves.
