News on Wick Map (Streets for All)

The Wick Street Design Project team enjoyed spending last week in Wick getting to know the community and the local area better. We really enjoyed our visit and were overwhelmed by everyone’s enthusiasm for the project and their appetite for change. Thank you to the 80+ Wickers who gave up their time to participate in our events, sharing local knowledge of the High Street and Bridge Street.

Our visit began with our team getting our hands dirty with Wick Hanging Baskets as we prepared and placed three beautiful barrel planters opposite Market Square to help improve the look and feel of the High Street with some greenery. We then enlisted the help of a local youth group and a few folk from Pulteneytown People’s Project to paint a bench that will provide a place to soak up the sun on brighter days, or to socialise with passing friends or acquaintances. This bright blue bench has the added bonus of being secured to a heavy planter that has handles for people to lock their bike when cycling into town. We would love to know your thoughts on the location of the bench and whether or not you’d like it to be a permanent fixture in the pedestrian precinct.

The idea for the bench and planters came about after looking through the results of earlier consultations carried out by Wick Community Council and Highland Council to get an initial feel for what you as a community want for Wick as a whole. As well as improving the look and feel of the street in the short term, we want the bench and planters to signify the potential that you, as a wider community, have to bring about positive changes to your local spaces.

To find out how you use Bridge Street and the High Street and the sorts of changes you’d like to see in these locations, we did a walking audit of the area with Wick Walking Group and held two community events in Caithness House and the Pulteney Centre where more than 80 of you participated in our activities.

If you didn’t get a chance to join any of these events, you can view the event boards and our inspirational examples from previous projects.

In the coming weeks we will be combing through all of your comments and feedback to build a picture of your needs, both as a community and as individuals, in terms of how you use the town centre and what would help it become a liveable and pleasant place to spend time in and travel though. Once we make sense of this information, we will be back in Wick at the end of November to share some of our design ideas. So Wickers - keep your eyes and ears peeled for more information about how you can get involved!

Please sign up to the news on this website for future updates and more information about the project. This site will remain open for comments until Sunday 27 October 2019 - make sure you have your say !