Mayor predicts year when people will see the potential of Mansfield

And he adds that the town is on the cusp of ‘changing people’s minds’.

He said: “I think a lot of people are stuck in the past, especially the older generation – of which I would be included.

“I can remember when I was a kid that, you know, you couldn’t move around Mansfield marketplace.

"Not a square centimetre, hundreds of stalls and, when you look back on that, they think that’s the glory days.

“That’s why we get a lot of negativity.

“Thirty-odd years ago, we had good wages and the Nottinghamshire coalfields were some of the most prosperous in the country – the engine of the country.

“People look back, proud of those times, but they haven’t really, at this point in time, got something they can go, well, I’m proud of it now.

"They just look backwards.”

But Mr Abrahams – who’s been the leader of the district council since 2019 – is hoping that his authority’s current programme of works, branded the ‘biggest regeneration in a generation’, will turn the tide of public opinion in Mansfield’s favour.

He continued: “It’s the biggest town in Nottinghamshire, but it doesn’t get that kind of attention and status that the biggest town in Nottinghamshire should get.

“It’s almost like Nottingham city’s over there and Mansfield could almost be on another planet.

"I think Chesterfield gets a lot more attention in Derbyshire.”

Mr Abrahams says he is passionate about his home.

He grew up on the Ladybrook estate, studied in Sheffield for a civil engineering degree and then worked all around the world, including in Canada, before coming back home.

Now, with a big team around him and lots of partner organisations, the plan is to ‘put Mansfield back on the map’.

At the start of the year, the council and its partners revealed ‘Mansfield Now’ – a collective name for 18 separate projects happening across the town centre, transforming old buildings into new opportunities and upgrading existing assets.

Mr Abrahams called it a ‘multiple-piece, jigsaw-puzzle plan’.

One project is the planned new Mansfield Connect hub, in the old Beales building, on the corner of Mansfield marketplace.

The council bought the property for £2m in 2021 from its private owners, with a view to attracting private investment in the area – a plan which has succeeded, to the sum of £30m.

Once finished, Mansfield Connect will act as a base for six different organisations, including the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), Mansfield BID and Mansfield Voluntary Community Services.

Mr Abrahams said: “It’s going to be a one-stop shop and attract maybe 800 people per day.

"You can see how that can help stimulate the local economy.”

“It’s going to transform the whole look of that area.

"Simply, if I put people and services in the town centre and improve the physical environment, it’ll attract footfall and will then support local businesses.”

Recently, preliminary work has been taking place to strip asbestos out of the old site, and dismantle bridges once used to connect the site to the Four Seasons Shopping Centre on the other side of Stockwell Gate.

The building itself will likely be demolished and rebuilt.

Other projects include the transformation of the town’s old BHS building into modern office space with a spa, gym and events space as well as a Boxpark-style foodhall downstairs.

Then there’s the Lidl moving into the Rosemary Centre site, and a construction college at the old Mansfield Brewery.

The derelict White Hart Street area is being transformed into 43 affordable social houses – helped by money from the East Midlands Combined Authority’s Brownfield Housing Fund.

The marketplace is being upgraded to be a ‘more pleasant environment for people to sit and dwell’, with new market stalls and an entertainment area.

And old, ‘gaudy’ shopfronts are being replaced with black and gold panelling.

Finally, the town hall is even getting an upgrade, with a Nottinghamshire Police base inside.

Once it’s all completed – Mr Abrahams says that 2029 is ‘probably’ the year when someone could arrive in Mansfield and see the fruition of all the schemes – the results should also begin to show.

The council’s greater, overarching strategy is called Make It In Mansfield.

It’s the idea that Mansfield becomes a place that people can not just grow up in, but actually make a life for themselves in – or come back to if they leave to study or work elsewhere.

Mr Arahams enthused: “The potential of Mansfield is far greater the story than people realise.

"You can make it in Mansfield no matter what it might be – you can make it in life here.

“I’m not saying you should never leave.

"What I’m saying is we want to create a town where people have grown up in, felt proud of and connected to.

"Whether you go or you don’t in your journey, be it educational or employment or whatever, you come back.”

While the ‘seeds of recovery’, as Mr Abrahams calls it, are in place, the mayor admits that the council will need help from elsewhere to boost the town to its full potential – including the reopening of a trainline connecting Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.

He continued: “It’s really important to improve the connectivity of Mansfield.

"It’s great as far as the M1 and the motorways but, as far as rail travel, we’re very much restricted.

“It’s super ambitious and probably will take some time, but the electrification of the Midland mainline would be absolutely a huge gamechanger for Mansfield and the surrounding areas.

"You can see the difference electrification makes in Newark and even Chesterfield.

“We’ve been lobbying for a considerable number of years about trying to get the Maid Marian Line reopened to join up the train lines from east to west.”

The Maid Marian Line has been closed to passengers since the 1960s, but support, including from Mr Abrahams, is strong for its return.

The East Midlands Combined Authority recently agreed to put £500,000 towards a new business case for the reopening – with recent calls to get it back up and running dating back to 2018, but having stalled in the past.

Separately, local government reorganisation (LGR) – which will see the end of Mansfield Council and Nottinghamshire Council, amongst others, in favour of one larger council – will also help, says the mayor.

He said: “The borders of the current district councils mean you don’t think of Mansfield as the real size of what it is as a placemaker – it’s kind of restricted by Mansfield district.

“But the truth is if you say to someone from Blidworth or Rainworth or Clipstone (which fall into the Newark & Sherwood Council boundary), all ex-mining communities linked around Mansfield, ‘where do you belong to, where are you closest to?’ and they’ll say Mansfield.

“LGR will start to scrub away those false boundaries.

“Really, I see Mansfield as 250,000 people – a small city.”

It’s not just future plans that are shaping the town though, Mr Abrahams points out, there are lots of positives already going on.

In 2022 more than 425 start-up businesses in Mansfield remained in business after 12 months of trading – the highest figure in the UK.

And, post-pandemic, Mansfield is doing ‘far better’ than most other towns its size, with, for example, a 25 per cent increase in people visiting the museum, and record numbers attending the Palace theatre.

And Mr Abrahams says the busy town centre last Bank Holiday Sunday evening tells him things are going in the right direction.

He said: “The cliche is, what would I want to come into Mansfield for?

“But it was packed.

"The night-time economy, I can tell you, is not doing too bad at all.”