Newark Town Council consider plans for £3.6million Towns Fund investment in Market Place — with enhancing historic character a priority
Retaining the historic character of Newark’s heart is among town councillors’ priorities for the redevelopment of the market place.
Newark Town Council’s finance and general purposes committee met for an extraordinary meeting on Wednesday, November 20, to discuss how they would like to see the £3.6million of Towns Fund money invested into Newark Market Place.
Newark and Sherwood District Council had provided councillors with an outline of some potential features and changes to the historic square, and sought their views on the desirability and priority levels of each — including water features, public art, cycle parking and more.
Clerk Matthew Gleadell noted the project — led by the district council — was now “gathering pace”, and that the town was in a “fantastic position” with the amount of funding available.
He added: “It’s not going to be an easy project by any means… not everyone is going to agree on the final product.
“It is a huge project, it’s massive for the town. We don’t take this lightly.”
While there were conflicting opinions, chief in councillors’ rankings of the items was maintaining the historic aspects of the market square, and enhancing its existing features, while simultaneously ensuring it is accessible and usable for residents and visitors.
The £3.6million in funding, provided by the previous government, includes £1.5million of capital investment originally allocated the the market as part of the Newark Heart project, as well as £2.1million re-allocated from the unviable Newark Gateway project.
To improve accessibility, but not detract from the square, it was agreed by a majority that the best course of action would be to remove the curbs and reset uneven cobbles — and that this should be a high priority due to the ‘dangerous’ nature of the uneven surface currently, with Laurence Goff sharing multiple instances of people falling or tripping on the curbs and loose cobbles.
He added: “It is a nightmare for some people who are disabled.”
Diane Ledger said: “We don’t want to loose any of the history of the market place… I think that is best for the people of Newark.
“Accessibility is the main thing and keeping the cobbles is a big thing.”
Jack Kellas echoed the comments, stating the square did not need a complete new surface such as asphalt, and questioned if the existing patches could also be restored to cobble, while current areas of smoother cobble and the central pathway of flat stones were pointed to as examples of suitable and accessible surfacing by Lisa Geary.
Councillors also declared the market place “an artwork in itself” — prompting the inclusion of additional public art to be negated in favour of enhancing existing features, and a suggestion to up-light some of the most important buildings in the area.
Lisa Geary, who proposed the up-lighting, stated it looked ‘so impressive’ when done on the town hall and castle for events, and suggested it was important to showcase these buildings.
She also spoke in favour of retaining the existing heritage-style lights.
There was support for the idea, and the council also agreed to request further designs and costing before making any decision for or against the district council’s suggestion of festoon lighting or other lighting in the square.
The importance of showcasing the historic buildings around the market had also been highlighted by Diane Ledger earlier in the meeting, while considering public art.
“People who come to Newark are so impressed by the buildings we have here,” she said, and also raised further concerns that adding artwork could “invite anti-social behaviour and graffiti”.
“We don’t want to invite anything like that. What we have is enough of an artwork itself.”
Lisa Geary added: “We need to enhance what we’ve got… the market place takes on all different characters for events, parades, cycle races. Public art can be very divisive, we know that.”
David Moore spoke in favour of some public art, and the way it can attract visitors, but questioned what type of public art would be considered for the town.
“We have limited space in the market place, whatever we put in has to be meaningful,” he added.
Neil Ross added that the decision was about “relative priority” compared to other features like the stalls, and that statues were “not useful if we don’t have an actual market place to put them in as we’ve run out of money”.
Including public art was agreed to be a low priority.
Councillors also voted including a water feature — such as a fountain — as low priority, but suggested the potential for a drinking water fountain or bottle refill station should be explored to help combat the use of single-use plastic bottles.
While the majority of councillors present were against including water features, Susan Crosby and Matthew Spoors had it minuted that they were in favour of the idea.
Concerns raised by those against included health and safety issues — such as legionella testing — and maintenance costs.
David Moore said: “You put a water feature in and you’ll spend all day every day cleaning fairy liquid out because someone will think it’s funny to put it in there and see it bubble up.
“We’ve got a new splash pad at Sherwood Avenue park which people can use in the hot weather… we’d be creating a rod for our own back.”
Additional cycle parking was also not favoured, although it was emphasised that the council did support cycling.
The nearby cycle parking provision on Bridge Street was noted by Jack Kellas, who also suggested additional racks would struggle to get a business plan showing need for them, and that it would require consultation with Nottinghamshire Police to ensure adequate CCTV coverage.
The sentiment was agreed with, and additional cycle parking considered as a low priority.
The preferences and feedback are to be passed on to the district council ahead of the design stage and exploring pricing for features.
The district council had previously provided town councillors with a 55-item spreadsheet of ideas for the market place to be ranked one to five by each member based on priority.
But this had faced both technical issues and criticism from town councillors over the unclear scoring matrix and weighting of results, as well as the inability to give a zero for items they did not want at all, resulting in the five main points being provided for debate in the meeting instead to help give the district a steer on councillors’ preferences for the design stage.
At the meeting, councillors also agreed for all future discussions and decisions for the project to be brought to either full council or finance and general purpose meetings — depending which was at a more convenient time — as all councillors are members of both.
