Bexleyheath High Streets for All

Can events and activation be used to bridge the gap between communities using town centre spaces?

Through workshops, events and design, We Made That worked to bridge the gap between communities and empower often- marginalised, young people in Bexleyheath. We were appointed to lead a team to deliver Bexleyheath’s High Streets for All programme. The team included POoR Collective working with local young people and Bohemia Place Market delivering night markets.

In a context where the town centre serves as an important hub for several communities of varied backgrounds, pressures resulting from their differing needs causes tension between these groups. Recognising their differences and joint needs within the town centre, the team ran a series of inter-generational co-design workshops designed bring these two groups into the same space to build solutions together. The participants proposed a series of improvements that ranged from intergenerational community events to design proposals, such as new seating areas.

A key proposal forged through the workshops was a new test route to mitigate the influx of young people in the Broadway by encouraging students to take alternative routes to the Broadway. Using wayfinding flags and prototype street furniture, this test route passed key public infrastructure, such as the local parks, filtering the volume of students heading directly to the Broadway after school, whilst encouraging them to discover and make use of the public infrastructure available to them.

The public realm prototypes have been installed and now sit on Bexleyheath Broadway, testing the ideas brought forward by local people, whilst standing as a monument to collaborative design. There is also potential for the approach and designs to be replicated and applied to other parts of the borough.

Through the night market programme, the team was also able to challenge perceptions of Bexleyheath Town Centre, including hosting a Young Entrepreneurs’ stall and a Young Curators’ night which included a talent show and local artist performances.