Year | 2021
Location |Grimethorpe, South Yorkshire, UK
Clients | Barnsley MBC: North East Area Council – on behalf of the Dell Steering Group

The Dell Project was a six-week collaboration between the Live Project team, the Dell Steering Group and the wider Grimethorpe community, to jointly develop a vision for the future of the Dell, an attractive but underutilised green space in the village.

Grimethorpe is a former pit village outside Barnsley that has suffered badly since the closure of its colliery – but has also seen the emergence of a local, can-do spirit in the face of insubstantial investments into the village. Over the last two years, The Steering Group has coalesced around the idea of a regenerated Dell. Following initial consultations with the group, we identified 4 streams to the brief:

– THE HUB – to adapt the existing building on the site, creating a focal point for the rest of the project to be developed around

– ACTIVE – to provide meaningful transformation of the recreation spaces

– WILD – to make the best use of existing wildlife and promote healthy habitats

– EXPLORE – to carefully re-imagine the Dell’s routes and signage, creating a more welcoming and accessible environment

Our community engagement approach followed a methodology of ‘Uncover, Co-Design and Excite.’ Weekly engagement events facilitated an iterative process in which the community’s voices were constantly informing our proposals. Our community engagement culminated in a ‘Have your say day’ on the Dell. The event was targeted at the young people of Grimethorpe, to kickstart youth investment in the project. We hosted two workshops; collaborative mural painting and clay totem workshop. Both tangible outputs will be installed on-site by the community at a later date.

Final outputs included a phased masterplan of the whole site, featuring a series of short, medium and long term interventions, that can be implemented by the community as and when funding becomes available. These interventions are outlined in a series of three booklets that correspond to each phase. A management plan outlines the future operation and maintenance of The Dell and directory details useful contacts for each stage of the regeneration. Furthermore, we uncovered a potential future relationship with Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. A detailed management plan of the wild part of the Dell is included as an output, to be reviewed by the Trust.

We hope that as our Live Project involvement in the Dell comes to an end, the Steering Group can feel empowered to carry forward these proposals and feel a rightful sense of ownership over the ideas we’ve been developing together.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedellgrimethorpe/

Credits:

Mentor: Kam Fai Tai
Client: Barnsley MBC: North East Area Council
Location: Grimethorpe, South Yorkshire, UK
Students: Sadeem Aljibreen, Louis Carrow, Emily Straw, Benjamin Huckstep, Matthew Hallett, Argyro Epaminonda, Yuchen Zhang, Marybeth Anches, Aoife Gilchrist, Liangcan Xu, Xiangxin Ge, Yining Gu, Felix Cousins

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