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Kettering town centre framework

Kettering

Process

Involving the CABE enablers

A meeting was held between council representatives, CABE staff and officers from the GAF II funding team in 2006. This included a walking tour of the town centre and a presentation from the council about its plans.

CABE agreed to focus support on the town centre rather than individual development sites. Two CABE enablers were appointed to look at design quality, access and movement, site assembly and project management.

The CABE enablers advised the council’s head planner and property manager. on how to:

  • procure developers
  • organise project teams to drive the development
  • build relationships with partners
  • create a clear definition of the vision for the sites
  • indicate the level of design quality expected.

Holding a workshop with stakeholders

A workshop was held to review the Kettering town centre masterplan, influenced by Creating successful masterplans — a guide for clients.

The workshop included councillors and officers alongside representatives from North Northants Development Company, East Midlands Development Agency and English Partnerships.

Issues were identified that needed to be addressed:

  • lack of specific design quality benchmarks in the masterplan
  • weaknesses in public realm and movement across the town centre
  • Importance of the council’s role as the leader of future development.

It was agreed to develop a design brief for an access and movement study for the town centre (including public realm) and to provide urban design frameworks for each of the key development sites.

Creating a brief for the town centre framework

The CABE enablers helped the council to create a brief for the Kettering town centre framework which  identified landscape spaces as part of the defining character of the town. CABE also urged the council to fund the project management of each development site and the town centre.

Kettering Borough Council was awarded £230,000 in growth area funding (GAF II) to create the town centre framework and buy key town centre sites. The CABE enablers helped with appointing consultants and assessing progress on the framework.

The resulting Kettering town centre framework focused on:

  • access and movement
  • preparation of development briefs
  • a retail strategy
  • a public realm strategy
  • an implementation plan.

With the Kettering town centre framework in place, the council was awarded funding up to a total of £5 million to implement the masterplan.