The exciting vision for Broad Marsh has caught the attention of one of America’s major TV channels CNN which broadcasts around the world.
In a special feature report called The Next Frontier looking at today’s architects and designers imagining the cities of the future, Nottingham’s plans for Broad Marsh sit alongside projects such as self-sustaining floating cities, subterranean living and super high-rise skyscrapers.
The Nottingham section focuses on the Green Heart centrepiece of Nottingham City Council’s vision for Broad Marsh, created with the Greater Broad Marsh Advisory Group and world renowned designer Thomas Heatherwick, which was unveiled a year ago.
In the film Thomas Heatherwick talks about the wide benefits that bringing nature into the heart of our cities can have and his desire to make “not just any old park, but make something really distinctive and unusual and unlike anywhere else in the world.”
City Council Leader Cllr David Mellen says in the feature that respondents to the Big Broad Marsh Conversation consultation were “dreaming, thinking what could it look like in the future,” adding: “More people want to live in the city centre, people are very concerned about the environment.”
He goes on to say: “Our advisory group took examples from across the world as to how other places have reinvented their city centres. We need to keep pace with the times – things that were great thirty years ago might not be so great now.”
The first phase of the Green Heart gets underway next year and will see an area the size of the pitch at Nottingham Forest’s City Ground located between Collin Street and Lister Gate – previously part of the old Broad Marsh shopping centre – covered in trees and planting, creating a natural, tranquil green space with pathways between Nottingham Station and Old Market Square.
The whole CNN feature can be viewed here, with Nottingham’s section starting at 18:05: https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2022/12/12/the-next-frontier-how-we-will-live-tnf-spc-intl.cnn