Swansea Council’s cabinet has approved an investment of almost £3m to improve the city centre’s Wind Street.
The cabinet met last week (December 17th 2020) to discuss the plan to make the venue more accessible to pedestrians and more attractive to businesses wishing to trade outdoors.
The aim is for Wind Street to be a family-friendly all-day café quarter with traffic restricted to business loading only from 7-11am.
Emergency vehicles will have access at all times but the street will be largely free of vehicles during the daytime and evening trading periods.
Work, to be carried out over the next year will include green-landscaped new entrances to the street.
Existing natural stone paving and kerbs will be taken up and re-used. They will be laid in a way that reduces future maintenance costs.
The re-use of existing footway material will also reduce the need to bring in new materials, making the project more sustainable and reducing the scheme’s carbon footprint.
The road will be brought up to the same level as the pavement to improve accessibility for all and to provide a flexible space for events and other activities. There will be new greenery along the street, with integrated informal seating.
The main work is due to start in the new year. Advance work already undertaken includes tree management which makes the area’s historic architecture more visible. More light now reaches pedestrians and people in the buildings. New street lights have been installed and new coloured pea-lights on trees now provide a vibrant backdrop to the street’s seasonal activities and activity through the year.
To help those with mobility issues, there will be a clear 2m-wide accessible route between the building frontages and new outdoor trading areas.
A new blue badge parking/dropping area will be created in Salubrious Passage, which will also benefit from new lighting.
Funding sources will include the council’s capital budget and the Welsh Government’s Targeted Regeneration Initiative.
Robert Francis-Davies, the council’s cabinet member for investment, regeneration and tourism, said: “We want Wind Street to be a family-friendly, high quality hospitality environment and we’ve been working on plans for some time.
“Work has continued through the pandemic; this has included consultation with traders and with environmental, disability and residents’ representatives.
“We also started preparatory work on site to pave the way for the main works in the new year.
“This included tree management and the installation of new public lighting and replacement pea-lighting in the trees.
“Our reimagining of Wind Street is another key element as we move forward with our £1bn transformation of the city centre. Work already well advanced on locations such as Copr Bay and The Kingsway – and our plans for other significant city centre locations – means that Swansea will have momentum to move forward in the months and years after the pandemic.
“Swansea has an exciting future – and Wind Street will have a big part to play.”