In December 2007 URBED and AGDR were appointed to develop a town centre vision and masterplan for Prestwich Village.  This follows URBED's work on similar strategies for Bury Town Centre and Radcliffe. Prestwich is an important centre within Bury but also operates as a suburban centre for Manchester. It is a historic village surrounded by parkland, is home to the largest Jewish community outside London and is an increasingly popular place to live for professionals working in Manchester. It is served by Manchester's Metrolink as well as the M60, Manchester's orbital motorway.

For all of that the centre of Prestwich is performing very poorly. The opening of a Tescos on the edge of the town centre in 2002 caused the Sainsbury's within the centre to close. Without an anchor the town centre has declined, particularly the Longfield Centre shopping precinct built in the 1970s. Over the last few years there has been major investment by the council in public realm works together with a new apartment development and a Marks & Spencers store. Despite all of these improvements a tipping point has not been reached and the centre continues to struggle. The strategy seeks to overcome these problems by looking at more radical improvement.