Derby residents, visitors and businesses are invited to have their say on a new vision for the city centre in person at a pop-up shop on St James Street.
From Tuesday 9 August to Wednesday 31 August, a unit close to the £200 million Becketwell scheme will play host to an exhibition and offer everyone a chance to put forward ideas for positive change.
Called “Derby City Lab” the pop-up aims to engage, inform and inspire people about plans to shape the city.
The future of Derby city centre is the subject of a wider conversation launched by Derby City Council to get people talking about what they would like to see happen there.
As part of the city’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, and to meet the challenges of the 21st century, Derby City Council has created a new ambition document which outlines ideas for a bold, transformational vision for Derby city centre.
Derby’s city centre conversation began on Wednesday 8 June on the Let’s Talk Derby website and is a chance for residents and businesses to review emerging ideas and share their feedback.
There is no need to book. Everyone is welcome to drop in at any point during the sessions which run Tuesdays to Fridays from 9 to 31 August at the following times
- Tuesday 10am to 2pm
- Wednesday 12 noon to 4pm
- Thursday 2pm to 6pm
- Friday 10am to 2pm
The vision will focus on longer-term ideas and interventions that will transform the city centre and secure its future as a vibrant place that people can feel proud of and want to visit. It will recognise the challenges facing all city centres, not just Derby, and provides an over-arching ‘direction-of-travel’ that will inform future plans and actions.
The document is broken down into 12 themes that focus on the main issues facing our city centre and the key areas we want to improve or reimagine.
- Climate change
- Culture
- Public realm
- Green and blue infrastructure
- City living
- Accessibility and connectivity
- Heritage
- Design quality
- Learning
- Business and creativity
- Shopping and leisure
- Delivery and coordination
Councillor Steve Hassall, Cabinet Member for Regeneration, Decarbonisation, Strategic Planning and Transport said:
This is a great opportunity for us to hear what Derby’s residents and businesses want and to shape a new vision for how the city should look following the coronavirus pandemic. It’s about improving quality of life for local people.
We want everyone to play a part in creating that vision by joining the conversation.
This is the first time a city-wide future regeneration conversation has taken place of this size since the creation of the City Centre Masterplan in 2016. The previous plan brought about exciting developments within the city, including the Becketwell development and Our City, Our River flood defence scheme.
These conversations around the ambition will inform the next stage in the process of developing a new City Centre Vision to be published in 2023.
The conversation began on Wednesday 8 June and will run for 12 weeks over the summer involve engagement events with local residents, young people, businesses, the voluntary sector and other key partner organisations.