Photos of Leicester waterside (photo James Pinder)

Today James, Graham and Simon attended an event in Leicester’s waterside, organised by Ash Sakula architects. Ash Sakula and their development partners, Blueprint, were one of the successful entrants in our recent design competition. Their winning entry focused on exploring how Leicester’s waterside can be revitalised as an ‘adaptable neighbourhood’, one that evolves organically over time through local action, rather than being the product of top-down, government-led regeneration projects.

Photos of Leicester waterside (photo James Pinder)

The purpose of today’s meeting was to bring together stakeholders with an interest in the area and to work out how to begin the process of change. A wide variety of people attended the event, including local business people, local residents and representatives from Leicester City Council. The issues that they discussed were wide ranging and included the importance of making the area feel safer and the potential for attracting passing narrowboats by providing them with facilities to moor.

One of the main outcomes of today’s event was the willingness of different stakeholders to commit time and resources to begin the process of adapting Leicester waterside and developing a sustainable neighbourhood.