Greyfriars consultation

This survey introduces some different ideas for future development on the site that we’d like to hear your thoughts about.

What we know

There are a number of things that are fixed about the site and any future development:

• To make any changes or development financially possible, there has to be a minimum number of homes on the site. This means low density home like semi-detached houses won’t be financially possible
• There is a substation on Greyfriars car park, this will be very expensive to move so will have to be designed around.
• There will be retail space included in new development.

Refurbishment option

One option for the site is to refurbish the existing tower blocks and build new development around them, on areas like the surface car park.

Redevelopment options

The other option for the site is to demolish some of the existing blocks and build new homes, designing new public and private open space alongside them. Here we are going to introduce a number of different ideas and we’d like to hear your thoughts on whether you think they would be good for Greyfriars.

As part of the study, a ‘parking baseline’ has been established to provide a comprehensive understanding of parking in the town centre in terms of car park locations, the number of spaces available and typical levels of demand. 

This includes surveys undertaken on weekdays and also Saturdays. Parking surveys were undertaken in Spring / Summer 2022 (post-Covid) and they recorded a maximum of 842 vehicles parked on a typical weekday across nine car parks. 

This is equivalent to 30% of the available spaces being in use with nearly 2,000 empty spaces present across the town centre. Whilst higher parking activity was observed on a Saturday lunchtime, there were still in excess of 1,500 empty spaces surveyed.

We would like to hear your views on parking options in Greyfriars.

Please complete the survey to share what you would like to see as part of the landscaping at Greyfriars.

There are opportunities to create a green street which provides an improved environment for pedestrians and cyclists, with safer connections across the road.

Ideas for Greyfriars Road

Ideas for Hassett Street Plaza

This area could provide an arrival/landing space opposite the bus station. It would also provide an opportunity for planting near the junction.

Ideas for potential Greyfriars Gardens and Alexandra Place Pocket Park

We want to ask you what is important to you in any future changes that may happen at Greyfriars. We want to hear your views on what would be important to you in making Greyfriars a better place.  

Today, we build urban neighbourhoods and homes differently.  Homes have high levels of insulation, better access, security and minimum size requirements to comply with. New urban neighbourhoods are often designed around a mix of open spaces for communal and public use, areas for play and landscape and other facilities such as shops and services.  We aim to incorporate the learning from successful developments built  elsewhere. 

This section asks some questions about the existing area and buildings, what is good and not so good about it. It will help us to understand the opportunities and constraints and inform the masterplan.

The site today

The residential blocks on the site, Roise Court, Beckett Court, Priory Court and Beauchamp Court, were built in the period after World War II and all completed by the early 1960s.

There used to be an additional two blocks where the current car park is located. These two blocks were demolished, replaced first with grass and then more recently Greyfriars car park in 2013.

The remaining blocks have a total of 249 homes with a mixture of mostly 1 and 2 bedroom flats (and a small number of 3 bedroom flats). The three taller blocks are 12 storeys high and Beauchamp Court is 6 storeys.

There is also a 3 storey block with shops at ground floor and residential above.