Moorfoot Link

Year | 2017

Location | Moorfoot, Sheffield

Clients | The Labour Party Planning Policy 

The reestablishment of a direct link between London Road to The Moor has been discussed for a number of years, with no concrete plans being formed.  The site is divided by Sheffield’s inner ring road, and currently pedestrians either have to cross a wide road or travel through narrow underpass, creating both a physical and perceived separation between London Road and The Moor. The Live Project’s clients, the Labour Party Planning Policy Forum (LPPPF), want to address this and share a common consensus that for the betterment of the city, the council should have more ambitious approach to infrastructure projects. The Live Project team inherited the project from  a group of engineering students from the University of Sheffield who had developed a feasibility study for a cut and cover approach and was tasked to evaluate and build on what they had produced.

Engagement with the local community was used as a starting point for the project to understand the current perceptions and feelings towards the site. The Live Project team devised a public participation event at two locations, one on The Moor and the other on London Road, to help determine the priority of needs for the design process and build a sense of community ownership over the project and received close 200 responses. Five key design criteria came out of this engagement:

• Legibility

• Identity

• Transparency

• Accessibility

• Adaptability

These five key principles were central to the project’s design development, allowing for the creation of a proposal that is community-led, sustainable, accessible and adaptable with a strong coherent identity and design language that is clear and inviting.

The Live Project team developed a three-phased design to achieve the final vision. The first phase enhances the current urban realm and can be implemented immediately so that positive change can occur as soon as possible. The second phase expands the urban realm creating a new public space via two options; either retaining or removing the underpass. The third phase demonstrates the potential that the urban realm expansion has on redeveloping the surrounding area.

Overall the project demonstrates that the creation of people-focused infrastructure and public realm projects can increase economic activity on both The Moor and London Road, whilst also acting as an aid in creating greater community involvement within the city.