29th February 2012
Greater
Blackfriars
The Barbican site, owned by the City
Council, has now been cleared of buildings. The County Council have expressed
an interest in seeing some of the land adjacent to Shirehall put on the market.
A masterplan has been prepared for the
development as an open space of the Castlemeads area, part of the floodplain of
the River Severn. There has been strong public support for the proposals, which
were in part developed through a project undertaken by Post graduate students
of landscape architecture at the University of Gloucestershire.
Blackfriars
Priory Quarter
Work funded by SWRDA and English Heritage,
to make the North and East Ranges of the priory available as a concert and
conference venue is now complete. Gloucester City Council will manage the
facilities from April 2012 onwards. The improvements to the priory were
shortlisted for a ‘Heritage’ award by the RIBA in the South West region.
The Gloucestershire Language Immersion
Centre is almost complete, and, we understand, is due to be handed over to the
schools consortium who will run it on April 1st.
Funding has been provided by the Homes and
Communities Agency to enable the refurbishment of the former Blackfriars Inn,
which fronts onto Commercial Road adjacent to the Language Immersion Centre. A
bid for European funding is being submitted by a consortium led by the
University of Gloucestershire which, if successful, will lead to the former Inn
being used as a Business Incubation Centre.