The Corporation has revealed new images to showcase ‘an ongoing reinvention’ of the Square Mile’s streets and alleyways.
A network of new routes which will be created through recent planning permissions are set to enhance the walking and wheeling experience through the area, as part of the City’s wider ‘Destination City’* initiative. The Square Mile will become a pedestrian priority City, in a way that surprises and delights as a 7-day destination for all and is respectful of its past. These adaptations are also crucial for enabling the area to absorb a 670,000 daily and growing workforce, as well as its existing residents and rising levels of tourism.
In the last year, three major schemes adjoining each other have been granted permission, at 55 Old Broad Street, 99 Bishopsgate and 55 Bishopsgate, creating a new network of pedestrian routes between the City Cluster of tall buildings, the Crossrail corridor and Liverpool Street Station.
These schemes will ease pedestrian congestion on Bishopsgate and Old Broad Street, creating high quality and vibrant public space to relax and travel through, while opening up views of City heritage landmarks, such as St Ethelburga’s Church and St Helen’s Place. Together, they will serve as an exemplar of joined-up and integrated City planning transforming pedestrian movement across this part of the City Cluster.
Planners have been focussed on the re-invention of the City’s streets and alleyways over several years, in careful collaboration with local stakeholders, developers and investors. These routes are negotiated with planning applicants, as the delivery of new, inclusive open spaces and enhancing the public realm represents a key strategic priority in the Corporation’s Local Plan, known as City Plan 2040. To date, these graphics show delivered and emerging routes which in total would exceed the width of the City in a walk from Fleet Street to Aldgate.
Since the late nineteenth century onwards, the historical fine grain and tight network of alleys of the medieval City have gradually been replaced by the larger more impermeable commercial floorplate buildings of later centuries.
But now, wherever appropriate, Planning Officers will seek to create shortcuts and cut throughs between busy throughfares to ease congestion, make better connections to Underground and mainline stations, re-introduce lost historical alleys to public use, open up new views of City landmarks to improve wayfinding, as well provide a better pedestrian experience along the Thames and up to the public high-walk network. A radical transformation re-inventing the City’s alleys
Deborah Saunt, City Property Association (CPA) ‘Destination City’ Working Group and co-founder of urban, landscape and architectural practice DSDHA, said:
“The joy of exploring the City’s myriad streets and alleyways is discovering the new and unexpected, with architectural treasures, pocket parks and hidden gems at virtually every turn. Opening up vibrant new cut-throughs further enhances the area’s social capacity too, as a great place to meet people, exchange ideas, make discoveries and to explore – which is both good for business and culture.
“As an ecosystem, the City is undergoing a human-scale urban renaissance with its alleys offering respite from congestion and cool routes in summer, along with the ongoing creation of new open spaces, improved biodiversity and wider walkways.””
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