Lennoxtown Charrette: Community Planning at Work
The Lennoxtown Town Centre Charrette was commissioned by East Dunbartonshire Council in Spring 2016 and sought to involve Community Planning partners as well as individuals and groups within the local community. WMUD were part of a team which was led by DPT Urban Design.
The aims of the Charrette process were to support the development of a Town Centre Action Plan that incorporated well-informed ideas specific to Lennoxtown and to harness existing and potential assets in the study area. To support these aims, the process set out to answer three broad questions:
- What activity is happening at the moment?
- Who is involved in this activity?
- How can this activity be best shaped to support identified opportunities?
An extensive pre-Charrette engagement process was followed by a four-day Charrette with a range of workshop sessions. The Scottish Government’s Place Standard tool was used to get as much information as possible about the community’s perception of the town centre. This was used to create proposals for future interventions aimed at creating a more vibrant and pedestrian-friendly town centre.
The focus for physical proposals was Lennoxtown Main Street. We developed three areas of potential improvements: the junction around Campsie Hall, Main Street around the Co-op and the Campsie High Church entrance and the North Berbiston Road to Slatefield junction area. All three areas could benefit from altered road layouts that helped to reduce vehicle speeds through a combination of narrower lanes and wider footpaths which would make it easier for pedestrians to cross the street.
We proposed a focus around Campsie Hall which could become an important and attractive entry point to the town centre, developing from the range of community uses already taking place there.
The area at the high point of Main Street around the Co-op entrance and the cash point is currently difficult to cross. As the team discovered in pre-Charrette surveys, this is a very popular and important crossing point. Again, reducing vehicle speeds and defining pedestrian priority crossing points would help to improve this part of the street for pedestrians using the town centre facilities.
The North Berbiston Road to Slatefield junction area could also be improved by narrowing the road, widening the footpaths and creating pedestrian crossing points. This would improve the current car park and access to the school and playing fields.
