Ambitious ideas for redeveloping the heart of Kilcreggan went on show last weekend.
The Rosneath Peninsula West Community Development Trust has commissioned landscape architects erz to draw up potential options for the centre of the village, funded by £10,000 from the National Lottery and Argyll and Bute Council.
And last Saturday an exhibition in Cove `Burgh Hall saw initial ideas put forward, including traffic calming and the creation of a ‘hub’ at the pierhead.
Trust director Charlotte McLean said there was a great turnout with around 70 people attending.
“The event was kept very formal with landscape architects erz talking through their initial thoughts and ideas for Kilcreggan to small groups,” she added.
“The main aim was to get feedback and those who attended were encouraged to jot down their comments.
“The response was generally very positive and it will be exciting to see how erz address them and feed them back into the design process.”
Another meeting will be held in the burgh hall on Saturday March 24, by which time erz will have produced several design options.
Issues which were identified include the amount of through traffic in the village centre, the tension between parking and pedestrians, unused space at the pierhead and overall unrealised potential.
- Ideas which were floated last weekend were:
- Traffic calming: in the village centre with pedestrians given greater priority. The gateways to the village could be defined, with other features introduced such as narrowing the carriageways, changes in road surface treatment and vertical features.
- Continuous, unbroken pedestrian routes could be created. A vehicle carriageway of standard width could be established with a footway or pedestrian priority route on both sides
- Relocating car parking: Some parking spaces might be relocated to the east, while the area used as access for Scottish Water access has the potential for dual use as a discreet location for parking, subject to agreement with Scottish Water. The landscape architects say this would mean the village keeping its current number of parking spaces, while freeing up more of the core village space for public activity. This is subject to discussion/agreement with Scottish Water. Two other potential sites for parking have also been identified.
- Improving spaces to shop fronts: The areas in front of shops could become shared, pedestrian priority spaces, which would enable outdoor seating and activity, better organise the parking in that area and incorporate a continuous pedestrian priority route
- Pier-head hub: Creating a ‘vibrant, well-connected public realm space’ at the head of the pier. The piermatser’s hut could be removed, with the piermaster being based in the same building as the public toilets, which could be renovated. Changes in levels would be resolved and a shared link created to Temperance Bra
- Waterfront park: The waterfront space could be developed as ‘a distinctiv and exciting waterfront park. There are a number of large or incidental green spaces along the coastal edge of the village and these have great potential for active community use’.
- Waterfront route: A ‘strong legible waterfront space’ could be created to connect the various green/public spaces. This route would be ‘an elegant and continuous waterfront walkway/promenade’.
- Connecting to the water: The landscape architects say there are limited opportunities to access the water and beach from street level in the village centre: “Clear opportunities to access the beach should be engineered, connecting into the proposed waterfront route.”
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