CARLOS GARAICOA Find out more The Castleford Project

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The Castleford Project: Key projects The Tickle Cock Bridge Underpass One of the main paths that people use to get into Castleford town centre was chosen for improvement as part of Kevin McCloud and The Big Town Plan. With shoppers making 50,000 trips through it every week and the regeneration of the area likely to bring many more, the dark and narrow Tickle Cock Bridge Underpass wasn’t a great advert for the town. Firstly the underpass itself was replaced with a much wider, taller tunnel by construction engineers Jane Wernick Associates. The new tunnel is two feet taller, double the width and much better lit than the old underpass. To encourage people to spend more time around the area, designers DSDHA also created an angular seating shelter, along with an open area and green a space, which replaced overgrown wasteland and tumbledown walls. The Town Centre Tickle Cock Bridge Underpass As part of the regeneration, three town centre improvement schemes were chosen for The Castleford Project. With Castleford still suffering from the effects of the coal pit closures, it was vital to bring regeneration to the heart of the town and make the town centre a great place to be, as businesses won’t invest where the workforce doesn’t want to live. A ‘regeneration centre’ was created from an unused furniture shop at 2 Sagar Street to provide a ‘shop window’ for all the projects and as a meeting place for community groups and the public to talk about them. However it has also developed into an arts venue and now regular workshops and exhibitions celebrating local culture and local artists take place there. In 2005, the outdoor market was relocated from behind the Carlton Lanes indoor shopping centre into a more accessible and central location. And in 2007, Castleford received a new £1.1m town centre square, designed by Hudson Architects. These changes have lead to a great improvement in activity around the town centre.
Parks and Spaces One of the projects in Kevin McCloud and The Big Town Plan involved providing new play areas in two of Castleford’s most deprived communities. The schemes involved local children every step of the way and the results are parks that are valued not trashed. The suburb of Cutsyke (a mile from Castleford town centre) is just a small community of around 700 houses but it’s home to a lot of large families who desperately needed somewhere safe for their kids to play. The project resulted in a run-down area being transformed into a £220,000 ‘play forest’. Similarly to Cutsyke, the Castleford suburb Ferry Fryston had no decent park for children. The local park was overgrown and there was a problem with vandalism. They now have a much improved play area (designed by Parklife) and leisure facilities, better landscaping in the rest of the park and a new entrance. A recreational area has also been created for 11-17 year olds with equipment voted for by children from the local high school. The Footbridge New park in Ferry Fryston Five years ago, the banks of the River Aire in Castleford were overgrown and dirty and the people living on the north side of the river had to cross an often dangerously busy road bridge to get to the town centre. Today a beautiful new pedestrian bridge snakes its way stylishly along the contours of the old weir right into the heart of Castleford. With its picturesque bay now fit for fishermen and children for the first time in many years; the bridge has become important both for the local community and as a factor that will attract businesses to the area as the riverside is now a busier place. Funded by Wakefield Council, Yorkshire Forward and English Partnerships, the £4.8m footbridge was the most ambitious of the regeneration schemes in Kevin McCloud's Big Town Plan.
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