Client: West Lancashire District Council, English Partnerships &
North West Development Agency
Location: Skelmersdale, UK
Size: 80 hectares
Skills: Regeneration, Masterplanning & Urban Design, Landscape Architecture
Skelmersdale is a new town with the problems associated with strict zoning of uses and high reliance on vehicular transport systems. Due to a lack of mix of uses, the internally-focused architecture and the reliance on vehicular transport, there is little pedestrian movement in and around the town centre. There is no street life, active frontage or evening economy. Due to this lack of social interaction the surrounding residential communities do not interact with one another and are therefore very colloquial. The retail offer within the shopping centre is primarily focused around value retail and does little to attract visitors to the town.
For the Skelmersdale project Broadway Malyan worked as part of a team with transport planners, leisure and retail specialists and Hemingway Design. Baseline work established the towns urban form, community concerns and issues, retail, commercial and community offer, current development proposals and infrastructure issues. We concentrated on exploiting the green backdrop to the town with increased permeability within the town centre and out to the surrounding residential areas providing direct vehicular and pedestrian links. Active streets, squares and green open spaces enclosed by a mixed leisure-led offer including wet and dry sports provision, extreme sports, associated leisure retail, a retail high street interspersed with cafes, restaurants, small office spaces and apartments all combined to create a mixed town centre offer. Green spaces would be utilised to increase the leisure offer with activities such as mountain biking, rock climbing, crazy golf, ecological interpretation and low rope courses.
As the Vision developed, Broadway Malyan engaged with landowners and developers to ensure practical delivery and prepare illustrations to support a statement of intent designed to underpin future stages of regeneration. The Vision was approved by the West Lancashire Strategic Partnership and graphics and branding were prepared to launch the Vision in parallel with finding private investors / developers to aid delivery of the reinvigorated town centre.