| Title: | Canterbury Levelling Up Fund, Canterbury, Kent, UK |
| Markets: | Parks and Green Spaces |
| Client: | Canterbury City Countil |
| Services: | Masterplanning and urban design |
| Region: | United Kingdom |
| Date: | 2023 |
| Team: | Gillespies | Studio Evans Lane | Mayer Brown | Mayhard | Cundall | Engenuiti | Direct Access | Corefive | RCGCI |
| Photography: | CGI copyright Gillespies |
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has awarded nearly £20m to Canterbury City Council’s ‘Connected Canterbury: Unlocking the Tales of England' project.
Representing a total investment of £22 million, the remainder coming from the city council, the scheme will revitalise the city's public spaces to make the most of its heritage and history.
The masterplan consists of a series of city-wide initiatives. These include:
• renovating Canterbury Castle and reopening it to the public - details to be confirmed
• creating an events space in Westgate Square near Westgate Towers
• revitalising the area around the Clock Tower in St George's Street (see image below)
• Greening and improving the bus station and St George's Lane
• Introducing story gardens around the city to bring its heritage alive
• creating heritage routes around the city, including along the city wall.
Gillespies was appointed by Canterbury City Council to support the design stage of the Levelling Up bid.
We worked collaboratively with Studio Evans Lane, Mayer Brown, Mayhard, Cundall, Engenuiti, Direct Access, Corefive and RCGCI to prepare the masterplan proposals, which included substantial consultation with residents and businesses. Gillespies' key role was to lead the landscape and public realm design vision for the spaces, streets, and heritage settings.
The Gillespies plans helped to focus appropriate landscape interventions on the various sites to maximise the benefits of proposed changes.
A series of Canterbury Trails such as a river trail, heritage trail and garden trail will draw together disparate sites across the city (gardens, heritage assets, gateways, parks etc), all feeding into the high street retail core. In addition, each end of the high street will be punctuated with a new plaza space for events.
Heritage assets such as the city wall, castle, Greyfriars gardens, and gateways such as the bus station and car parks, will draw in new visitors and help the economy. At the same time, improving the parks, high street, and play areas will enhance social and wellbeing aspects of the local community.
Canterbury City Council's bid was supported by a range of partners including Historic England.
