THE new-look heart of Nelson has won another two national awards.
The Pendle Council project to bring new life into the town centre has impressed judges and is now the winner of three huge titles.
It is the winner of the Highways Category in the 2012 Street Design Awards, and it is also the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation Mouchel Streets winner.
This follows the success in April, when it was revealed the centre had won the 2012 National Stone Sustainability Awards landscape title. And it has won the town centre support of Mary Portas.
The £2.3m. project brought an impressive new look to the town centre, and allowed traffic to get back through it for the first time for more than 20 years.
The CIHT said: “Judges praised this brave and innovative regeneration scheme, well executed and with good results, and were especially interested to see the negative elements of old-school pedestrianisation being tackled.
“The scheme embraces a significant length of the high street, and the balance of place and movement works very well in the different ways through the various components of the overall scheme.
“The judges liked the way in which the scheme has been shaped around a central key feature (The Shuttle and the amphitheatre) and particularly the softening effect given by the central pedestrian walkway.”
Nelson beat rivals in the London Borough of Lambeth and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
Leader of the council Coun. Joe Cooney said: “These awards show we are on the right track to transforming and regenerating Nelson Town Centre.”
And Coun. David Whipp, who oversees Pendle Council’s engineering services, said: “It’s great that the quality scheme carried out in Nelson has been recognised nationally. The council’s design team did a good job working with local craftsmen, using mainly local natural materials to create a pleasing thoroughfare for people on foot and in cars. The result is a much livelier space than previously.”
He pointed out that it was former Liberal Democrat councillor Allan Buck who fought to get traffic back through the centre. The council team who worked hard to achieve it were Dorothy Morris, Hanna Latty, Colin Wilkinson, Peter Atkinson, Scott Whalley, Jonathan Austin, Debbie Taylor and Carl Johnson.