Decision details

A High Street Renewal Programme has been established for Keynsham High Street including funding from WECA, B&NES Council, Historic England and partner match funding. This report seeks approval to accept the Historic England grant funding alongside the agreement of an outline Delivery Plan.

The Cabinet Members agreed to;

1.1  Agree acceptance of the £1.100m High Street Heritage Action Zone grant from Historic England. This requires the submission of a delivery plan before 1st September 2020.

1.2  Fully approve the revised budget of £3.658m for the Keynsham High Street public realm scheme reflecting the inclusion of grant and third-party funding as set out in section 5.

1.3  Note that the Delivery Plan (Appendix 2) includes a masterplanning exercise to assess the evidence and feedback from the current COV-19 High Street access restrictions.

1.4  Note a provisional budget of £150k will reflect future CIL funding for this project considered as part of the CIL allocation in the 2021/22 budget-setting.

The Historic England Heritage High Street Action Zones (HAZ) Programme is designed to secure lasting improvements to historic high streets and will support sustainable economic & cultural growth on and around high streets and enhance local historic character making streets vibrant places.

Phase 1 of the public realm improvements will deliver a one-way public realm scheme for the High Street Core that will create wider pavements, safe cycling, improved pedestrian connections to Memorial Park and car parks, will make some improvements to Temple Street and Market Walk, will declutter street furniture and improve multi-model wayfinding and information across the town centre.

Phase 2 will focus on Upper High Street & Station Road that contain the concentration of historic buildings around St Johns Church.

Both phases have been reviewed to make sure that they are fit for purpose considering the impact of the full closure of the High Street in response to the Covid 19 restrictions.

The HAZ Delivery Plan  will assess the evidence and feedback from the current COV-19 High Street access restrictions and if supported, explore options to allow the restrictions to be retained in some form. This will ensure that there is the flexibility in any future designs to allow for High Street access restrictions on specified days for events, on weekends or 7 days a week as necessary to achieve the scheme outcomes.

The following options were considered:

Do nothing - this would not secure lasting improvements to the historic high street or support sustainable economic & cultural growth.

It is possible that this level of funding would not be available in the future if a decision was made to delay the projects.