The long-awaited creation of a welcoming entrance to the city from the south will begin in early August 2020, with new images showing the scale of change the public can look forward to.
Below is what Nottingham City Council say about the new Broadmarsh area and traffic changes:
The exciting new green, pedestrian-friendly public space for the city centre – involving the most significant changes to a city centre road layout for 15 years – is being funded through the Government’s Transforming Cities Fund, approved by Nottingham City Council’s Executive Board last week for Nottingham and Derby and D2N2, the Local Enterprise Partnership. The scheme has attracted over £20m of Government funding and the traffic changes will come into effect on the weekend of 8-9 August. Once complete, these major works will see:
What the changes will create?
The redevelopment of the whole Broadmarsh area will drastically improve the city centre once completed, with a new Broadmarsh Car Park and Bus Station, Central Library, Nottingham Castle visitor experience and Nottingham College City Hub and reimagined public realm, along with a new intu Broadmarsh development, currently paused due to the impact of Covid-19.
The new Broadmarsh Car Park and Bus Station, due to open in 2021, is already changing the city centre for the better, with cladding work underway as a marked improvement to the previous Car Park and Bus Station building, with a new Central Library and retail outlets also due to open on Carrington Street in 2021.
These schemes will create an open, vibrant, welcoming space to the city for anyone arriving by bus, tram, train, car, bike or on foot. The new spaces and traffic reduction will deliver vastly improved pedestrian environments and will include dedicated cycle facilities on Canal Street. The work will also provide a great new public space between the new college, shopping centre, Nottingham Central Library and Nottingham Castle, with spaces for outdoor seating, food and drink in Carrington Street and areas for children to play creating a better atmosphere to sit and dwell during the day.
This will mean the areas connecting these major new developments can be turned into a bright, tree-lined space with high quality paving with landscaping, public art, and outdoor cafés, transforming them into safe and attractive spaces for people to enjoy. Views to the Castle will be preserved, with new places for people to sit and relax, space for art boxes and words in the paving, celebrating both the new Central Library and Nottingham’s status as a UNESCO City of Literature, included as part of the design.
The Sussex Street area, between Middle Hill and the new Nottingham College City Hub, has been inaccessible and unwelcoming for some time, and will be transformed into a brighter, amphitheatre style space, with steps from Middle Hill to Sussex Street and an environment where people can relax and play, with new spaces for activity and exercise for young people, including skateboarding. These public spaces will be capable of hosting major events in the day and night, helping to further boost the city’s reputation for hosting top-class entertainment and activities.
Work to improve the historic frontages on Carrington Street under the City Council’s Townscape Heritage scheme will improve the facades of these buildings in time for new retail units to open on the ground floor of the Broadmarsh Car Park building on Carrington Street.
Nottingham was in the midst of change long before the COVID-19 pandemic, with ambitions to become a carbon neutral city by 2028. Central to the Southside transformation has been the re-routing of city centre traffic away from Collin Street and Canal Street to create a fantastic new entrance to the city and welcoming pedestrian space. This has been done previously in the city at Old Market Square, Trinity Square, Station Street, Lister Gate and Upper Parliament Street, creating better spaces for people to relax and browse what Nottingham city centre has to offer.
Traffic Switch FAQs
Changes to the area
Q: When are you changing the roads?
A: Works will begin on the weekend of 8-9 August.
Works have been ongoing to prepare the roads for these changes since 2016. We will begin the next major phase of works, namely the changes to Collin Street, Canal Street, Greyfriar Gate and Middle Hill, from the weekend of 8-9 August. Roads would traditionally be quieter at this time because of summer holidays, but which will still be especially quiet as the country is phased out of lockdown. The changes to Canal Street, Greyfriar Gate and Middle Hill will be immediate, with works to create a welcoming new gateway to the city from the south expected to continue throughout 2020 and 2021.
Q: What can I expect from the new public space?
A: A great, greener new public space which will transform the entrance to Nottingham.
These schemes will create an open, vibrant, welcoming space to the city for anyone arriving by bus, tram, train, car, bike or on foot. The new spaces and traffic reduction will deliver vastly improved pedestrian environments and will include dedicated cycle facilities on Canal Street. The work will also provide a great new public space outside the new Nottingham Central Library, with spaces for outdoor seating, food and drink in Carrington Street and areas for children to play creating a better atmosphere to sit and dwell during the day.
The Sussex Street area, between Middle Hill and the new Nottingham College City Hub, has been inaccessible and unwelcoming for some time, and will be transformed into a brighter, amphitheatre style space, with steps from Middle Hill to Sussex Street and an environment where people can relax and play, with new spaces for activity and exercise for young people, including skateboarding. These public spaces will be capable of hosting major events in the day and night, helping to further boost the city’s reputation for hosting top-class entertainment and activities.
Q: What are the major changes to the roads?
A: Some roads will be closed and some will have the direction of traffic changed.
The major changes will see Collin Street closed to all traffic, with traffic diverted along the Southern Relief Route.
Canal Street, between Middle Hill and Greyfriar Gate, will become a two-way restricted area for buses and wheelchair accessible taxis. However, in the period between the initial traffic switch and completion of transformation scheme on Canal Street, the section of Canal Street between Carrington Street and Middle Hill will operate eastbound only for buses and taxis.
Whilst we continue with our construction programme there will be a closure of Canal Street westbound (at Middle Hill), this will be until the Car Park opens.
Greyfriar Gate, which runs between the NCP Car Park and Ocean nightclub, will have its traffic flow reversed – so instead of travelling north on it, you will travel south. Middle Hill, which runs between the tram viaduct and Broadmarsh Car Park site, will also have its traffic flow reversed – so instead of being one way southbound, it will become a two way route.
Q: Why is the Council pedestrianising a main city centre road?
A: To create a more open, welcoming space to the city centre.
Nottingham was in the midst of change long before the COVID-19 pandemic, with ambitions to become a carbon neutral city by 2028. Central to this has been the re-routing of city centre traffic away from Collin Street and Canal Street to create a fantastic new entrance to the city and welcoming pedestrian space. This has been done previously in the city at Old Market Square, Trinity Square, Station Street, Lister Gate and Upper Parliament Street, creating better spaces for people to relax and browse what Nottingham city centre has to offer.
The £250m redevelopment of the Broadmarsh area will drastically improve the city centre and make it safer, with four lanes of traffic now reduced to two lanes of bus and taxi only traffic on Canal Street, improving pedestrian and cycle routes from the south with upgraded streets, safer junctions and better pedestrian flows in the area.
This will mean the areas connecting these major new developments can be turned into a bright, tree-lined space with high quality paving with landscaping, public art, and outdoor cafés, transforming them into safe and attractive spaces for people to enjoy. Views to the Castle will be preserved, with new places for people to sit and relax, space for art boxes and words in the paving, celebrating both the new Central Library and Nottingham’s status as a UNESCO City of Literature, included as part of the design.
The Sussex Street area, between Middle Hill and the new Nottingham College City Hub, has been inaccessible and unwelcoming for some time, and will be transformed into a brighter, amphitheatre style space, with steps from Middle Hill to Sussex Street and an environment where people can relax and play, with new spaces for activity and exercise for young people, including skateboarding. These public spaces will be capable of hosting major events in the day and night, helping to further boost the city’s reputation for hosting top-class entertainment and activities.
Work to improve the historic frontages on Carrington Street under the City Council’s Townscape Heritage scheme will improve the facades of these buildings in time for new retail units to open in the Broadmarsh Car Park building on Carrington Street.
Q: How much is all of this costing? Is it taxpayer money?
A: The whole project is being funded externally – no local taxpayer money is being used on this scheme.
The £250 million redevelopment of the Broadmarsh area, including intu Broadmarsh, the Broadmarsh Car Park building, Nottingham College Skills Hub and roadspace transformation, is being funded by partners and funds the council has bid for, rather than local taxpayer money. The changes are being funded by the D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership, Local Transport Plan, City Deal/ERDF and Transforming Cities Funding.
The main roadspace transformation scheme has been allocated £20m, with a further £2.3m and £5.1m for wayfinding and cycle improvements respectively, from the Government’s Transforming Cities Fund.
Changes to the road layout
Q: Can the new routes you’ve designed cope with the traffic that used Collin Street and Canal Street?
A: Yes.
All of our modelling prior to proceeding with the changes to the Broadmarsh area suggested the road network could cope with the changes to the roads: if it was likely to have made traffic worse in the long term, the project would not have gone ahead. In Summer 2019, Canal Street had to be closed for seven weeks for major gas works, which turned out to be a test of the changes the council was looking to put in place, and congestion was extremely low during this period. We anticipate that as people get used to the changes, there may be some minor delays but as people get used to the new road layout, these will reduce.
Q: How much longer will my journey take?
A: No more than a couple of minutes.
All of our modelling prior to proceeding with the changes to the Broadmarsh area suggested the road network could cope with the changes to the roads: if it was likely to have made traffic worse in the long term, the project would not have gone ahead. We have consistently checked traffic levels and made adjustments to the roads and traffic lights where necessary and believe journeys are only likely to take a couple of minutes longer than usual if at all.
Q: Can I still get to intu Broadmarsh across Collin Street?
A: Yes.
While Collin Street will close to traffic, pedestrians will still be able to walk and cycle along the street as usual, including to access intu Broadmarsh via Collin Street.
Q: Why are you doing this when more people are going to be at home in the UK over summer because of COVID-19? And with the A52 repairs still ongoing?
A: The roads will still be quieter than usual, and these changes will improve the city centre.
At the start of lockdown, traffic levels in the city centre were 20% of their usual level, and our projections suggest that even if lockdown eases on the schedule set out by the Government in May, roads will still be half their usual level over summer. These changes will transform Nottingham for the better, creating an open, vibrant, welcoming space to the city for anyone arriving by bus, tram, train, car. On foot or by bike.
Q: Will those working on the site be safe given the COVID-19 pandemic?
A: Yes – we will follow all Public Health England guidance.
These works will not be carried out if they cannot be carried out safely. The Government has issued strong guidance on how people on construction sites should work while on site, and our teams are working on how they can carry out these works considering the safety of both staff and the general public.
Q: Why are you still carrying on with this work when there is doubt over the future of intu Broadmarsh?
A: These changes are still needed, to create a fresh new entrance to the city and encourage further investment in the city
The City Council has long been committed to a transformation of the Broadmarsh area to extend the city centre southwards, creating a fantastic new public space for residents of Nottingham and visitors to the city. While we are continuing to find a way forward for intu Broadmarsh, it’s important that we move ahead with the rest of our exciting and transformational plans for the area. These plans are fully funded and are an important part of Nottingham’s recovery from Covid and future growth and prosperity.
