The pedestrian severance created by Lincoln’s railway, high-speed roads, and large-scale shops, would be tackled by a masterplan from Prince Charles’ design consultancy.
The draft masterplan, launched last week, seeks to overcome problems with Lincoln’s physical layout. The city council believes this stands in the way of it fulfilling its new role as a regional centre for the East Midlands. Launched with a visit by the Prince of Wales, it seeks to expand the city centre beyond the railway line, with a new pedestrian bridge over the track and a new east-west route to take eastbound traffic away from a level crossing at the bottom of the High Street.
Two pedestrian north-south routes – one connecting the university and castle, the other the railway station and cathedral – would be improved to encourage people away from the busy High Street. The 30-year strategy recognises that removing the level crossing is unfeasible, given the £200M cost of putting the railway underground and the engineering difficulties in – and unattractiveness to pedestrians – of creating a subway. The proposed dismantling of the A57 flyover separating the city centre from the Fossdyke Canal followed extensive traffic modelling. The masterplan was drawn up following an ‘enquiry-by-design’, to allow local views on the way Lincoln should develop to feed into the strategy.
Hank Dittmar, chief executive of The Prince’s Foundation, said: ‘It became very clear at the workshops that Lincoln’s ancient strengths – the relationship between the city’s culture, governance and commerce, and its physical relationship with the hill and river – have been undermined. The regeneration of Lincoln city centre is a story of reconnection.’ ~Kate Mear~ , Lincoln city council’s economic, sustainability and tourism manager, was confident the plans were financially feasible. The new east-west route would use some of the county council’s local transport plan funds, while demolition of the flyover would pay for itself, situated as it is on prime retail land.
The improved pedestrian routes would provide relief to people using the ‘busy High Street’ by ensuring that alternative routes felt as though they led somewhere, and barriers such as busy roads were removed. Restoring the ancient block system of streets by introducing more side roads would reduce reliance on CCTV by improving natural surveillance. Prince Charles’ involvement would generate public interest in the consultation and showed ‘that we are serious in changing things’.
The council plans to start on some quick-win streetscene projects early next year. : Linking Lincoln www.lincoln.gov.uk
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