Future of Broadway - Prospero Place

We're giving some love to the heart of Stratford, by making upgrades to Prospero Place - our town centre.

This is a key project in our Long Term Plan (LTP) with the redevelopment working towards our vision of a Welcoming, Inclusive, Safe community – Te Pūmanawa o Taranaki (translated to the beating heart of Taranaki).

The Future of Broadway project aims to create vibrant public spaces and enhance safety, accessibility, and cultural identity - focusing on these key areas:

• Community – transforming Prospero Place into a lively community hub, fostering social interaction and engagement
• Connect – improve connectivity between Broadway and Miranda Street, creating a welcoming environment for people to support local businesses, attend events and access surrounding destination areas like the sporting complexes in King Edward Park.
• Celebrate – Promote our cultural and historical identity, acknowledging tangata whenua, our unique Shakespearean heritage and reinforcing our natural surroundings. Integrate public art, wayfinding signage, and green spaces to enhance the town’s character.
• Safety – improve lighting along Broadway between the roundabouts, installing modern energy efficient lights that both enhance the look and feel of our town centre as well as meets Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) standards.
• Sustainability – Implement sustainable and best-practice design principles.

Background

Towards the end of 2016 we launched Stratford 2035 – Making it Real, which was an integrated approach to Stratford’s long term future. This included the Future of Broadway project, focusing on the revitalisation of Prospero Place and Broadway.

Over subsequent years, the project has changed in scope due to changes in land use in the area, such as the demolition of the ANZ bank and land next to Prospero Place becoming available. More recently, concept plans have been drawn up to determine the best use of Prospero Place and surrounding town centre areas. We're now at the stage of bringing the concept plans for Prospero Place to life through detailed designs that reflect the changes in the way that the space is used by our community. We aim to start physical works later this year.

We're really excited about getting to work on improving Prospero Place and hope you are too!