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Students want our views on their blueprint for Banbury
13/03/2024
The project is part of a Property Development and Planning degree course
Students from Oxford Brookes University are set to showcase their ideas for redeveloping parts of Banbury town centre.
The students have been working on a blueprint for the town as part of their final year of a Property Development and Planning degree course. They are set to showcase this at a consultation event being held at Lock 29 tomorrow (Thursday).
Whilst the exercise is purely academic, it comes at the same time as Cherwell District Council is working on a real plan for redeveloping the town centre – known as Banbury Vision 2050.
Officers from the council have been collaborating with the students and their lecturers and will be at tomorrow’s consultation to gauge opinion on the students’ ideas.
The project includes ideas for areas such as Canalside, the Bolton Road car park, the bus station and the empty Debenhams unit at Castle Quay.
For the students the consultation is an opportunity to experience public feedback and get real-life thoughts on their suggestions.
Sally Sims is a lecturer on the course. She said the student’s ideas were inspired by three years of learning, an earlier consultation in Banbury Town Hall and a field trip to the Netherlands.
Sally said: “They were really keen on the regeneration of the historic town in Maastricht, seeing how it was done there and their use of buildings. They also looked at Rotterdam and Utrecht. I think a lot of their inspiration for design has probably come from there.
“They also listened to what the public said they would like to see happen in Banbury at a public consultation last year, just before Christmas – chatting to people about what they needed, what was missing and what they would like to see in Banbury to make their town centre better.”
Tomorrow’s public consultation in Lock 29 runs from 10am until midday.
Published: by Banbury FM Newsteam