Laneways provide an opportunity for people to explore and be part of the life of the city.

Public life in cities often occurs at its street intersections. Nelson’s internal parking squares limit the ways in which people can move through the city, and reduce the chance of a person discovering something new and interesting while on their journey.

A laneway network can solve this issue. Linked up laneways enables our blocks to be broken down, creating small-scale connections across the city which encourage people to explore and stay in the area, thereby benefiting local business and community. The success and importance of laneways in modern urban environments is evident in forward thinking cities worldwide.

What is a laneway?

Laneways are narrow streets, service lanes and alleyways that can add diversity and a finer grained character to the city’s overall public space offering. A network of laneways create small-scale connections across the city which encourage people to explore and stay in the area, thereby benefiting local business and community.

Laneways provides a legible pedestrian network that celebrates the finer grained, urban character and experience of the city centre.

Objectives

• Providing new links to explore and access the city

Laneways provide a range of choice for pedestrians and cyclists to move across the city centre. Lanes also provide the opportunity for new placemaking measures, new retail offers new pedestrian wayfinding and public art to make the city centre experience rich, rewarding, and memorable.

• Enabling new places and destinations

Laneway links offer new places and reveal new destinations in the city centre. Imagine a Nelson market operating with a strong place along the east-west spine with food trucks and places for people to gather and socialise on Market Day, Nelson’s busiest day. There also exists the opportunity to work with the Department of Conservation (DoC) to create a new link and destination in Albion Square at the edge of Queens Gardens.

• Opportunities to reveal a special cultural story

A feature laneway could provide a link between Theatre Royal to Albion Square/Queens Garden would be proposed with a strong Maori cultural expression. Key features of this cultural laneway will explore distinct lighting, paving, planting and seating elements.