9 – Rethinking Endcliffe Park and the Porter Valley
This project is a great opportunity to work with Sheffield City Council Parks and Countryside department to look at the future of one of Sheffield’s most loved and extraordinary linear parks.
There are two focuses to this project – firstly looking at the whole of Endcliffe Park and coming up with new and fresh ideas on how it might be improved. Whilst the layout of the park works well and it is hugely popular, the overall concept has been overshadowed by ad hoc additions.
Secondly further along the linear park there is the unique 18th century Shepherd, a scheduled ancient monument with steel polishers work shops, wheel pit and dam pond. As part of a lottery bid for this they would like ideas and concept designs for an education shelter for workshops. “Endcliffe Park is a well-known and extremely busy city park. It is bordered by the Hunters Bar roundabout at one end and Rustlings road at the other. The landscape is EH registered, grade II, for its high heritage value. It was partly designed by William Goldring in 1885 and features a mixture of amenity parkland, naturalistic landscaping and ancient woodland. It forms a part of the green corridor that makes up the Porter Valley, stretching from the city centre out to the peak district national park. As such it is an important asset for the city in terms of amenity and recreation as well as biodiversity and economic values.” The project will include arranging and carrying out a creative consultation event in the café in the park to introduce ideas and gather information.
Hi all
I have just spent a rewarding hour with a team of students of Architecture at the University. They have just started a 6 week community consultation on the future for Endcliffe Park (and by extension the Porter Valley as a whole). This is an important piece of work which may well shape Sheffield Council thinking on this parkland. Janet Lawson is the main Council contact.
I ask you please to post them your comments and those of others +other useful contact details as soon as possible. The same message will appear in the FoPV newsletter due out by early next week. They will not be issuing a fixed list of questions but want live , informal, fresh comments. The outcome of their project will coincide roughly with our FoPV AGM on 7 November so a summing up may be possible then, but their work programme (even split between the 10 of them) is heavy because of the short time. Don’t leave feeding your views too late.
Ann le Sage
Chairman Friends of the Porter Valley
As a youthworker by background and a parent of an under5 I’ve been working with Friends of Endclliffe Playground to get a more exciting playground for the park.
Playground plans are being worked on as we speak and we’d welcome student ideas on how we maximize on this fantastic location through the use of play, and open up the natural environment to a new generation to explore.
However I’m also interested in how young people use the park and not excluding them from the plans. I’ve been trying to make contact with youth workers to see what detached work is happening in the area as I know that the Police have talked about having a youth shelter on temporary loan. What I don’t know is what young people think should be there for them. Is there help that the students can give in making sure that young people are not forgotten in the ‘play’ equation please?
Thanks,
Niki
Hi,
I hope that any thoughts about the future of Endcliffe Park will involve consideration of the children’s playground and possible future developments for active play for older children and teens.
Friends of Endcliffe Playground has been working for the last 2 years to raise the funds to refurbish the children’s playground in Endcliffe Park. We have already raised £210K of our £220K target. We are in the initial stages of working with Keith Missen and the Environmental Planning team on the designs for the new playground and a masterplan for possible futur developments in terms of play provision in the park. You might like to check out our website http://www.endcliffeplayground.org.uk and then perhaps contact us to arrange a meeting/discussion.
We will be very happy to be a part of your discussions and help inform your thinking.
Tracey Shibli
Fundraiser, Friends of Endcliffe Playground
Hi Tracey, and the guys at friends of Endcliffe Playground, great to hear from you. We have been made aware of the great work you have and continue to do with improving facilities for the young generation of park users. £210k is such a great total and to be only £10k off your not so distant total of £220k we would very much like to meet in the coming weeks and perhaps depending on your availability and desire get you involved in some interventions that we will have happening in the Park over the coming weeks, many thanks for the weblink, I will have a look and hopefully so too will the other users of the Blog Site,
Many Thanks
Ryan – 09liveproject
“Re-thinking Endcliffe Park and the Porter Valley”
Hi Niki, thank you for your comment! We are going to plan some interactive events with the public, including young people, to find out what is wanted and needed in the park. Hopefully this will drive future proposals in Endcliffe Park.
We will be updating the blog regularly and will also advertise the events and meetings planned so please keep logging on.
Thank you
Caroline – 09liveproject
“Re-Thinking Endcliffe Park and the Porter Valley”
Hi, this looks interesting. Is there going to be a Live project in 2008?