Theme Four: Targeted Investment In The Public Realm
Investment in the quality of the public realm will lead to regeneration and redevelopment of sites and revitalisation of parts of the City centre, and such investment is justified as a fundamental precursor to economic development. It makes the City centre an attractive setting for other investment. The interrelationships of public realm investment and economic performance are not always direct and obvious but they remain very important.
This framework explores concepts for these places and spaces through illustrative drawings. These are not fully developed design proposals – that work would be commissioned at a later stage.
There are five strands to this theme:
1 Approaches and the Sense of Arrival
Each of the road approaches to the City centre fails to achieve any real sense of arrival into a high quality urban environment. In all cases they are confusing and illegible and the continuity of the urban fabric is disrupted. The same is true of arrival by train and arrival by bus. Only the River spaces have any sense of arrival and legibility, but these remain underexploited. There are development opportunities related to each approach that could transform first impressions, allied to change in the design and quality of the public realm. In most cases change is related to:
2 Taming Traffic
People are subservient to traffic on each and every approach to the City centre, irrespective of their mode of travel. The requirements of traffic have made the City illegible, disrupting its historic and organic structure. This need not be so, and each of these approaches can be changed to restore the visual and spatial structure and improve pedestrian routes from the inner suburbs into the City centre. This could be reinforced by construction of a Northern Relief Road which could assist the prioritisation of access traffic over through traffic, and by the success of the Park & Ride programme. This aspiration will be tested within the work to be undertaken as part of the Transport Innovation Fund which will help to examine ways to reduce the amount of non-essential traffic within the City centre and restore the balance in favour of people.
3 Structural Defects
The City centre has parts that are very poorly connected to other parts. These include:
- The pedestrian environment on the Millburngate Bridge and the potential for the retail area to have circuits that do not oblige shoppers and other visitors to retrace their steps, supporting The Gates Centre and Claypath by improving the connections between the two sides of the river.
- Pedestrian connections from the Bailey towards the University’s main campus as part of a new north-south axis that connects from the hotels and long-term car parks in the north via the Gala and the Market Place, the Castle and Cathedral to the main University campus, the Oriental Museum and the Botanical Gardens, providing an alternative route between the two main concentrations of University activity relieving Church Street of pedestrian movements.
- Continuity of the River banks through the City centre.
These can all be addressed through investment in new public routes and connections as the catalyst for further regeneration.
4 Legibility and Accessibility
The City has significantly expanded accessibility with new and improved walking routes but accompanied by increased confusion and illegibility, with poor signage. In many cases these routes deposit people in places where the onward connections are not obvious. There is no simple network that reveals the City centre structure through visual means, and much of what is on offer can be missed. This visual and interpretive information should be widely available online to provide necessary information to contribute to the marketing of the Durham City Experience.
5 Making the Most of the Heart
The Market Place is the most important space in the City centre, bar none. But at the moment its main function is as a service yard, and it is cluttered with objects and poor surfaces that frustrate its exploitation. It needs a thorough reappraisal and redesign so that it can perform its true role in the life of the City.
6 Securing Public Realm Investment through Development
The Durham City Vision includes extensive proposals for the regeneration of the public realm throughout the City centre. This reflects the premise that a high quality public realm is a pre-requisite to economic regeneration because it attracts investors and consumers and increases the value of trade. There are three potential routes by which this investment can be funded. The first two are:
- New public sector budgets
- Re-targeting of existing capital and maintenance budgets However it is envisaged that most of the larger schemes will be realised as part of a package that includes the redevelopment of adjoining sites, and will be secured through legal agreements as part of the planning process.
