Nottingham’s popular Green Heart is at the centre of two national award nominations.
The city-centre space formed a key part of successful award submissions in the Architects’ Journal (AJ) Architect Awards 2025 and the Pro Landscaper Sustainability and Diversity Awards 2025.
Both have now been shortlisted in the Landscape and Public Realm Project and Local Authority/Council categories respectively. The former will be announced at the end of November while the latter will be decided at a ceremony tomorrow evening (7 October).
Judges from the AJ Awards were recently in Nottingham to be taken on site visit of the wider Broad Marsh area, which has undergone a major transformation in the past few years.
As well as the Green Heart, which officially opened in September 2024, Nottingham City Council has also opened a new Central Library and Broad Marsh bus station and car park. Nearby Collin Street has been turned from a traffic-choked, three-lane road into a quiet pedestrianised space with children’s play area.
Additionally, Sussex Street next to Nottingham College has been given a makeover with seating areas, landscaping and a new basketball court and skate park.
The submission, put in by Townshend Landscape Architects who worked on these projects with the council, highlighted:
- The council’s Big Conversation consultation on what the public and businesses wanted to see in the space – this attracted more than 3,000 individual responses and 11,000 comments
- How the Green Heart design and implementation put the ‘marsh back in Broad Marsh’ – a key request from members of the public
- Collaboration with Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust and impact of bringing more nature into the city centre
- Extent of the positive feedback received from the public since the refurbishment of Sussex Street, opening of the Green Heart, new Central Library and Broad Marsh car park
The submission for the second award came from the city council and reiterated the authority’s vision to support a ‘flourishing, connected and sustainable city where every resident can thrive’.
It added that around of quarter of Nottingham is classed as green space and that the Green Heart was a fantastic example of a flagship policy and national benchmark which put ‘biodiversity at the heart of its design’ – seeing a 438 per cent net gain by introducing wetlands, native planting and mature trees.
Councillor Neghat Khan, Leader of Nottingham City Council and Executive Member for Strategic Regeneration, Property and Communications, said: “We’re rightly proud of the Green Heart and this comes off the back of it being shortlisted for two other regional awards more recently.
“What we’ve created and the way the wider Broad Marsh area continues to be transformed is worthy of recognition.
“I’m pleased that the huge amount of work put in by the council since 2020 – when the site was suddenly handed back to us – is being acknowledged. The Broad Marsh project picked up an accolade at the East Midlands Property Awards very recently, so to be shortlisted for two more is very encouraging.
“The Green Heart has proved extremely popular with residents and visitors to Nottingham. It celebrated its first birthday at the start of last month and the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust has documented numerous species of insects and small mammals on the site.”
A further change is to be made to the Green Heart later this week to help protect the site during the NHS works on a new Community Diagnostic Centre at the foot of Lister Gate.
The top of the central path will be closed off with pedestrians asked to divert around the edge of the Green Heart as they walk through. Cyclists should continue to stick to the outside of the site.
This is to protect the lawned and soft-landscaped areas, as well as fencing, which have been walked across in the past few weeks. The situation will be kept under constant review with the aim to reopen both paths at the appropriate time in line with the NHS works on site.