A new public space scheme by landscape designer Martha Schwartz has opened in an unusual site: the location of former demolished workers' housing in the coal mining village of New Fryston in Castleford, Yorkshire. Regeneration

A layered network of stone walls and pathways includes seating and green areas with oak trees, shrubs and grass; a bridleway for local horse riders; a safe surface bike slope and children’s play area. The project features a six metre high stone finger or ‘cairn’ and wrought iron bollards by artist Anthony Gormley, creator of the ‘Angel of the North’.

Led by English Partnerships, the scheme has transformed a featureless grassland area into a new community space.

It forms part of a wider programme of regeneration in the area known as The Castleford Project.

The Castleford Project is a partnership between Channel 4 Television, Wakefield District Council, and several national, regional and local public agencies.

The work of the Project will be the exclusive subject of a series of TV shows, to be shown on Channel 4 TV in 2006/07. It will follow the process of a program of urban improvement from its start to design and delivery of eleven projects which will transform the town's public space.

The Project's creative team includes Martha Schwartz, Jan Gehl & Lars Gemzoe, artists Carlos Garaicoa and Winter + Horbelt, and UK designers Deborah Saunt (DSDHA), Renato Benedetti (McDowell Benedetti), Sarah Wigglesworth (Sarah Wigglesworth Architects), Anthony Hudson (Hudson Architects), Estell Warren Landscape Architects and Allan Tod Architecture. Niall McLauglin Architects have recently won an architectural competition to design a new community museum and art gallery in the town.

Five of the eleven projects which make up The Castleford Project are now complete. Six more are to follow.

The Project has been dubbed the world’s first televised regeneration scheme.

It has featured in several national professional conferences as an exemplar of best practice in urban revitalization.

The televised Project will be presented by host of the ‘Grand Designs’ TB show Kevin McCloud.

More information available at http://www.channel4.com/castleford and david.barrie@talkbackthames.tv

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