Bamford Vision

The community of Bamford village, 10 miles west of Sheffield in the Derbyshire Peak District has recently gained regional attention when its local society saved its village pub, the Anglers Rest, by persuading supporters to buy shares to foster it as a community-managed enterprise. The Sheffield School of Architecture was approached with a mind to rethink this as a more functional and characteristic community hub through redesign strategies and feasibility studies.

The project was expanded to encompass a wider Bamford Vision, which manifested as a holistic strategy for the village focused on four key aspects across different scales. In addition to the original intended work on the Anglers Rest, the Bamford Vision Live Project team: conceptualised landscaping and event-architecture options to increase the profitability and functionality of the village recreation ground; masterplanned village infrastructures to tackle issues of traffic, parking and road safety in a way that was sensitive to local character and pedestrian behaviour; and finally created a wider branding and identity strategy that included mapping exercises and touristic considerations that also created cohesion between the other aspects of the project.

Working closely with representative Bamford Community Society members, the village’s parish council, the Recreation Trust and local MP; the design proposals were carefully tailored to respond to the needs and funding potential of the village. These ideas were then reviewed in a series of consultation events which were made available to each household, and the feedback consolidated and reported in useable consultation documents for the village.

The final output was compiled into a 160 page final Bamford Vision document, outlining designs, costs and activation methods for each of the project focuses. In addition the team have produced a branding strategy document, multiple tourist information packs, new village and regional maps, and consultation event products – all of which have been contained into a all-inclusive “Black Box” with a mind to record Bamford’s vox populi and the design process of the Live Project for posterity and petitioning for future implementation.