Kegworth Public Realm project summary

What you told us about the proposed plans

October 2023

In Spring 2023 revised plans were drawn up for the revitalisation of Kegworth’s historic Market Place and improvements to one of the main routes into the village, London Road. These are the final two parts of the Public Realm project for Kegworth, following the installation of village gateways and re-siting of the bus shelter across the road from the Market Place.
The £1 million Public Realm Project is funded by the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership , North West Leicestershire District Council and Kegworth Parish Council.
Feedback from residents, businesses and people with an interest in the village has helped shape this project since its inception in 2019 and it was important this continued as new plans were developed.

Summary

• Residents, businesses and people with an interest in Kegworth were invited to share their thoughts on the proposed plans for Market Place and London Road (part of the Kegworth Public Realm project) from Monday 5 June until Monday 3 July – four weeks in total.
• Prior to this, the plans were publicised online and offline with businesses in and around the Market Place contacted directly
• 1,100 people visited the dedicated web page for the project, 37 completed the questionnaire, 50 people were engaged with face to face and three emails were received
• Although interest was high, feedback was low, suggesting people don’t have strong feelings either way about the proposed plans
• The main themes raised through the engagement were:
  • The siting of the Blue Badge spaces
  • Lack of designated parent and child spaces
  • The build-out on London Road reducing visibility at the Whatton Road junction
  • A two-hour parking restriction in Market Place is too short for some needs
  • The need for a safe crossing point
  • Addition of trees and seating
• All the issues raised have now been discussed by the Public Realm Project Board (made up of officers from North West Leicestershire District Council and Leicestershire County Council and Councillors from Kegworth Parish Council).

How we did this

To provide plenty of opportunities for people to see the plans and give feedback, information was shared online, on paper and in person, including:

• Including a double-page spread in the Kegworth Parish Council newsletter (which goes to all households in the village – approximately 2,000) showing the Market Place plan and sharing information about how to comment
• Contacting 35 businesses in and around Market Place directly
• Putting up posters and shared leaflets with six business and organisations around Kegworth, including the Co-op and the library
• Posting 24 Facebook updates on the two main Kegworth community pages; plus information was shared by KPC and NWLDC on their Facebook pages
• Setting up a dedicated web page on the NWLDC site that included history of the project, the plans, all images of materials and street furniture, and a link to the questionnaire
• Contacting the local MP, county and district councillors and the student liaison officer for Nottingham University

And then during the period when people could provide feedback, we:

• Continued to promote the drop-in sessions at the KPC offices and online ways to provide feedback through social media
• Ensured the plans were available to view during the Parish Council office opening times
• Provided six sessions at the Parish Council Offices where members of the Project Board were available to answer questions were held – three in the evening and three in the morning
• Attended at the church coffee morning to talk about the plans, hand out information and gain feedback

What we found out

We received feedback via responses to the questionnaire, emails and face-to-face through the drop-ins and visits to shops and events. There were 39 responses to the questionnaire, we spoke to 50 people face-to-face and received three emails. There were 1,100 individual visitors to the web page to view the plans.

The questionnaire showed:

• 51% really liked or liked the plans; 19% neither liked or disliked them; 27% didn’t like them
• The majority of respondents liked the black steel street furniture (51%); 24% preferred timber and stainless steel
• There was less certainty over the surface materials – 46% didn’t know which they preferred, with 30% going with option two
• The majority of people who supplied an answer live in the DE74 postcode
• 89% of respondents were village residents, 8% do business in Kegworth and 5% work there
• 38% of people responding were in aged 60-79 years; 32% 40-49 years and 27% 20-39. No-one who responded via the questionnaire was under 20 or over 80.

Themes

Here are the key themes from all the feedback (the questionnaire, face-to-face and emails):

1. Parent and child spaces – comments from both the questionnaire and the drop-in sessions highlighted no parent and child spaces have been included in the plan.
2. It’s an improvement – there is a general feeling the new layout for Market Place is an improvement on the current one.
3. Disabled bays – there have been a number of comments about the siting of the disabled bays and ease of access as they are close to the re-opened South entrance
4. Parking restrictions – businesses and residents want these re-introducing, however there was some feedback that two hours isn’t long enough, with some suggesting four hours
5. Crossing point – a safe crossing point to Market Place from the church side would be welcomed
6. London Road build-out – has caused some concern in relation to the safety of the Whatton Road junction and whether the build-out will decrease visibility
7. Trees and seating – trees were suggested to introduce shade and seats were seen by most as a good idea, however one person said benches would take up valuable parking space

Next steps

All feedback from the questionnaires, emails and face to face meetings was shared with the Project Board in July. A ‘you said, we did’ page has been produced which addresses each of the key themes listed above and how these have influenced the next steps and will inform the final designs for Market Place and London Road.