POLITICS
PEDESTRIAN SAFETY MUST BE CONSIDERED
Improving pedestrian access between Nottingham Castle and the city centre will be a key part of future-proofing Nottingham, believes Cllr Sam Webster (pictured). Once the castle redevelopment is complete, he says the council is
aware there will be a greater footfall from both the railway station and Old Market Square to the tourist attraction, via the traffic-heavy Maid Marian Way. Cllr Webster says: “If we can improve the experience, safety and heritage aspect of that route, then I’m in favour.” John Morgan points out that traffic will be diverted away from the city centre
by the new Broadmarsh car park and bus station. Moving the entrance from Collin Street to Canal Street will enable the road outside the old Broadmarsh Centre to be pedestrianised, making access to the city centre from the railway station far easier.
Victoria Green (pictured), CEO of Nottingham
family-run property company Spenbeck, says this would help to not only attract visitors but keep residents and workers in the city centre. She suggests creating
such an environment in the first phase of a larger masterplan that splits up the Broadmarsh area for different types of “sensitive” development. “That’s a pragmatic approach because, at this
point, nobody knows what post-Covid looks like, but neither can we sit in limbo forever,” she adds. “So we can get a strategic balance by giving the city what it needs now for people to enjoy and look at it as the first phase of the regeneration while we get our ducks in a row.” Councillor Sam Webster, the city council’s
portfolio holder for finance, growth and the city centre, admits it’s “fairly obvious” that a green public realm will be part of the masterplan, particularly as it would support the council’s Carbon Neutral Nottingham 2028 plan. But he warns it’s “not the be all and end all” as the council will consider a mixed-use approach also encompassing employment and aspirational housing.
OSLO HAS BECOME synonymous with contemporary architecture, with old areas transformed in recent years to create a brand- new skyline.
But the Norwegian capital isn’t just a living
gallery for world-class designers – its new neighbourhoods have captured the imagination of investors too. John Morgan, director at Leonard Design Architects, which has been involved in the Broadmarsh area masterplan, believes Nottingham could learn a lot from such examples on the continent. “Nottingham should be benchmarking itself not
against Birmingham, Leicester and Liverpool, but actually against European cities as well,” he says. “The city has set itself some incredibly
aspirational and challenging green targets, so therefore we should be looking far wider. “Our team is doing a number of projects in
Oslo and we always say they’re genuine about the people who live and work in developments. “People are at the heart of decisions but
they’re also making financially viable and profitable developments that external investors are interested in because they’re getting it right for how they’ll be used.” There’s also examples closer to home, given
that Sheffield City Council was left with a large site that had been destined to be a shopping centre which didn’t get built. The 1.5 million sq ft Heart of the City II
regeneration scheme has instead involved a phased approach to build shops, a hotel, homes and Grade A offices, including a flagship HSBC office. “It respected the heritage and historic street
pattern, and it’s managed to create different funding strategies for each of those blocks,” says John. “Sheffield has shown how to make it work.”
The shopping centre vision is no longer on the table
The Lace Market regeneration offers a prime
example of how to tap into the city’s heritage while satisfying current and future needs. Victoria – whose company has played a
central role in the Lace Market transformation as one of the area’s main property owners – also draws inspiration from London, which has reinvented many areas with designs based on how streets were originally mapped out. She suggests bringing back some of the old
street names and potentially restoring some of the original topography, adding: “We’ve got such a rich heritage in the city and it’s a massive opportunity to fuse this together with the sustainable design-led future uses. “Whatever multi-function scheme we look at,
tourism should be front and centre of it because many people all over the world will know about Robin Hood, the caves and lace. So let’s use the Broadmarsh area to hit people in the face visually with what Nottingham is about because you only have one chance to make a first impression.”
WHILE THE BROADMARSH is the “crater” in the middle of Nottingham and a puzzle that needs solving, there are spurts of positivity surrounding it. Cllr Webster describes a “golden thread of
development” that begins at Trent Basin, the eco housing project on the north side of the river, and extends to the 40-acre Island Quarter site – finally being developed into a mixed-use scheme after decades of laying derelict – Nottingham College and the Broadmarsh, finishing at the castle. “There’s just an immense amount of
development happening there and more investment than any of us have ever known to happen before in Nottingham,” he adds. “But it’s really important that this time we get
the right solution for Nottingham. It’s not the Broadmarsh Centre anymore and I think that’s one of the positives. “One of the things that’s certain for me is that
the site as we’ve known it and the buildings as we’ve known them for the past number of decades won’t be there any longer. I think external investors are noticing what’s happening here – so yes, we’ve got challenges, but the opportunities are much greater than the challenges.”
business network February 2021 61
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