New Street
New Street is one of Huddersfield's busiest high streets, featuring an eclectic array of local shops, restaurants and cafés. To support these local businesses, we've invested in New Street, making it a much nicer place for people to spend time, relax and socialise.
We've repaved the street, and introduced lots of new structural artwork and greenery to make New Street not just more welcoming but also more in keeping with developments in the surrounding part of Huddersfield - including Our Cultural Heart, which sits right round the corner and is set to put Huddersfield on the map as a destination for art, music, history and culture.
What's changed
As part of the improvements, we repaved New Street, laid new cables and installed new lighting.
The lowest of the new planters installed provide new seating on the street, making it easier for people to rest and enjoy.
We're introducing a lot more greenery in Huddersfield town centre, including much more planting and foliage on New Street. As we improved the street, we've installed two new kinds of planters and filled them with greenery.
The lower planters, with a modern, curved design, are at the right height to offer more seating to passersby and filled with pretty flowers and foliage.
Three taller planters are also spaced evenly along the street, filled with plants which, over time, will continue to grow upwards and spill out over the top of the planters, creating a waterfall of greenery. These planters are also sculptures in their own right, celebrating Huddersfield's history and key features of the local area.
New Street is right around the corner from Our Cultural Heart and, like many of our blueprint plans, improvements to the street were threaded through with a homage to Huddersfield's local art, history and culture.
The tall planters, which are helping to turn New Street into more of a green 'garden street', are three tree-like structures designed by artist Tim Ward. Made from steel and standing an impressive 12metres tall, each has its own distinct theme which celebrates something about Huddersfield and Kirklees. The first is themed around 'contours', representing the contours and topography of Huddersfield town centre. The second is 'waterways', representing our beautiful rivers and canals. The third is 'commerce', with the structure created to look like threads in honour of our area's rich textile history.
Once the initial repaving had settled, we also added a final, poetic touch in the form of paved poetry artwork. The design curves gently up New Street, displaying a poem specially written for the area by the national Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage. Having grown up in nearby Marsden, Simon Armitage is a Kirklees local and has a strong connection to Huddersfield town centre. This poem celebrates what makes Huddersfield a unique and fantastic place to live, to visit and to enjoy: its community.
Funding
This work has been funded by Kirklees Council.
