Hamilton Town Centre Vision

This Masterplan Vision shows a future Hamilton transformed into a vibrant mixed use and better-connected town centre that meets the needs of the whole community. With a commitment to rebalance the town centre away from its over reliance on retail, evidenced in the two (increasingly vacant) major shopping centre assets at its heart, it strives to forge a community focused future, fostering connectivity, liveability, and economic vitality for generations to come. Through the introduction of new homes, workplace, leisure and essential services, all set within a transformed and greened urban realm, it seeks to redefine Hamilton as a benchmark for 21st-century urban living.

This Vision is the “glue” that ties together the complexities of all the current and emerging published policy and strategy and reflects an alignment of intent across all major stakeholders, governmental departments and politicians. A guideline to assess and nurture future development, it will encourage investment and ensure the town centre is a vibrant and attractive environment leveraging the authenticity derived from its rich heritage, culture and shared stories to fulfil the real promise of a town centre - to create opportunity and distraction.

In scope, depth and detail, this study is an exemplar of how to embed greater socio-economic resilience and sustainability in an urban core. More than a statement of ambition and reiteration of policy, this is an in-depth, granular analysis of the health of the town centre and a detailed ‘care plan’ to create a vibrant, resilient town. The opportunity for physical and spatial interventions is shown in carefully considered volumetric studies with proposals based on a deep-dive townscape analysis and embodying the shared values and ambitions of a town centre for scale and quality.

The vision depicts in detail interventions to create human scaled place and layer a greater mix of different activities to help attract residents and nurture businesses, demonstrating how the intensification of inhabitation and interaction between uses can energise place with foot fall and extend the times of activity.

Social and environmental responsibility is woven through the vision; from the carbon benefits in re-use to the opportunities for increasing biodiversity. Socially, the vision depicts a town centre that truly reflects the shared values of the community i.e. a town with a democratisation of space that is free to enjoy and thrive in with no barrier to gender, ethnicity, age or affluence; a town centre based on interactions not transactions.