Work has begun this week to create a brand new public space at the western end of Station Road in Redhill, outside the new Nobel House development.
New seating, improved lighting, attractive planting and better cycle storage will make the area much more inviting for those living, shopping and working in Redhill. Five new trees will replace the existing trees, which have a limited life expectancy in their current location. The area will also be repaved.
Reigate & Banstead Borough Council is working with Hollybrook Residential Developments Ltd – the developer of Nobel House on Queensway – and Surrey County Council to deliver this scheme, which is being funded by Hollybrook as one of their community obligations as part of the redevelopment of Nobel House. Other obligations have included an upgraded pedestrian crossing from Warwick Road and payments to local health and education providers to reflect the additional demand on those services arising from the new flats.
Cllr Natalie Bramhall, loca councillor and Chairman of the Redhill Regeneration Forum, said:
“We want Redhill to become a thriving town centre which is a prominent commercial location, a competitive retail destination and great place to live.
“This area of Station Road is looking very dated and over time has become a bit tired. These improvements will dramatically improve this important gateway to Redhill and the perception it gives of the town centre. The scheme will provide a striking modern space for local residents, shoppers and business people to sit and relax, or just pass through.”
Andy Nash, Manager of the Belfry Centre and Vice Chairman of the Redhill Regeneration Forum, said:
“The new public space will give a real lift to the western end of Station Road and make a big difference to retailers in this area.
“The Belfry and other local retailers have been closely involved in developing the design for the scheme. We are delighted that the new public space will be a high quality scheme that will raise the bar for future projects in Redhill town centre.”
The improvements are being funded by infrastructure contributions from the development of Nobel House, which has already provided 126 homes right in the town centre and around 12,000 square feet of retail space, expected to open later this year.
The construction of the new public space on Station Road will be completed by April.
Twitter
RSS
Sounds welcomed except perhaps the “vibrant 2 tone design of pavement bricks” I fear the worse when those modesty screens come down (but I’m probably just getting old)
I’ve not lived in Redhill particularly long, but it is the 4th Redhill pavement finish. Can’t help thinking that the expensive natural stone paving that our fellow rate payers in Reigate are forced to put up with on their unvibrant pavements might be be more economic in the long term?
There are now litteraly hundreds of missing pavement bricks in Redhill center that have been removed to dig service trenches or removed after old bricks crack. They are all replaced by just filling the empty space with a botch of concrete or tarmac, so the whole place looks like a model’s smile with missing front teeth. This has not happened at all with Reigate’s paving stones, perhaps the council refuses to accept cheap bodges to the expensive flag stone after Reigate’s services are dug or perhaps its because a ‘fashion surface’ has not been used and so there’s always stocks of matching replacement paving available?
Can I suggest we learn from past mistakes and there’s a small sacrificial area of bricks layed either here of in a car park, so that in 10 years time missing pavement bricks can be replaced by a guarenteed stock of identical looking ones, if not, I fear in a very few years, this new surface will in it’s turn be accused of making Redhill look down-at-heal & vibrant new paving will have to layed.
Two-tone bricks fades quickly compared with natural stone, (they have faded a lot in the town center) so replacing cracked ones with brand new bricks will very soon create the ‘down-at-heal’ look once again.
If our two tone bricks are layed in a pattern, it will need to be even more carefully maintained, so it is more important that Reigate’s zero tollerance attitude to botched pavement repairs is extended to Redhill.
Geoff - yes, we do suffer problems with reinstatements (actually in all of our town centres - I regularly walk past tarmacced spots in Reigate High Street).
Please be assured that as part of their work our engineers doggedly pursue the utility companies to ensure that they reinstate the surface properly. However I cannot overstate how difficult their job is, as the legal powers which the Council has to force utility companies to do the work are very limited - we are basically subject to their goodwill.
As you suggest, we already do keep a stock of the different paving stones at our depot, for use in reinstatement works.
I understand that in London new legal powers are being trialled, which could be extended nationally, giving Councils greater powers over utility works - this could significantly improve the situation. Until then we will do our best using our current resources and powers.
The photo above shows that those mature trees did a lot to make the area look good, its a shame to see them go. A new photo with just a few saplings in it will look pretty unpleasant when compared to the old one.
Surrey’s waste lorries funnel into town heading for Redhill’s growing rubbish mountain and each month, the horizon (in the photo above) looms ever higher over our town. The photo above is an old one. A new one would have the growing waste horizon visible in it. I suspect Redhill is the only town in Britain that has permitted a waste mountain to be constructed in the view down it’s main street? Those old trees would have made a very valuable contribution to screening-off the consequences of a grim planning mistake over the next 20 years of it’s growth.
The mention of the ‘limited life’ of urban trees seems very odd as London & other towns seem to be perfectly able to maintain their urban trees into old age and our ones had nor even got close to middle age. The trees looked perfectly healthy and had achieved un-vanadalisable sizes, so I hope it was their ill-health and not the cost of coppicing them every year and the cost of protecting the new pavement from their roots that caused their destruction.
Perhaps we planted the wrong species last time & that accounts for their ‘limited life’? If so, I hope we’ve learnt from past mistakes and the new trees will be of species carefully selected, so that future generations will be able to keep the trees to maturity.
Geoff - as someone who held out to keep the existing trees for a long time, I can sympathise. However the arboricultural advice was that these trees are not suitable for the location, and were also not planted in the best way originally to enable a long life. So in the end I concurred with colleagues that we should replace them - and yes, we are assured by the professionals that the new species will be more suitable for that environment.