Castle Gateway, Tamworth

Tamworth Borough Council: along with providing a wide range of services for residents, many businesses based in Tamworth and the people who visit the borough, the Council is working to realise a vision called ‘Tamworth – celebrating our heritage, creating a better future’.

The Castle Gateway public realm design, along with the planned demolition of the Nationwide Building Society building, merges two of the overarching conceptual ideas of tiles and textiles. Public realm and landscape improvements to this area of Tamworth town centre have been considered across the piece to ultimately achieve a consistent and unified whole with shared levels of quality, materials, street furniture, lighting and planting. Key elements of the design include:

• The creation of a widened bridge/gateway to the Castle and its grounds to increase pedestrian and cycle capacity as well as uninterrupted views of both the Town Hall and the Castle, its Gatehouse and ruins with contrast feature paving that leads towards and over the bridge.
• Provision of sustainable urban drainage and integration of low level planting for wildlife, well-being and biodiversity as well as breaking up the newly surfaced space.
• Provision of contemporary street furniture that limits unwanted access in the form of removable bollards and opportunity for dynamic and contemporary lighting.