By Andrew Topping, Local Democracy Reporter
New QR codes have been placed at several locations across Mansfield to encourage residents to have their say on how the town centre should be redesigned.
Mansfield District Council has launched the new consultation as it looks to shape its wider planning for the town, with residents, businesses, community groups and other organisations urged to come forward with ideas.
The scheme aims to find out what people like and what can be improved as the authority looks to plan the future of the historic town centre.
An online database has been set up, with people able to scan the QR codes, walk around town and comment on numerous different buildings and sections of the high street.
QR codes are a type of barcode which can be scanned by mobile phones to point the user’s device straight to an app, service or website online.
The database is tracked by Google Maps, so people responding to the survey can take a picture of individual parts of the town and let the council know what changes they would like to see where.
This stage of the consultation will run until Thursday, November 24 and Adam Hill, the council’s new chief executive, wants all generations of residents to get involved.
He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “We want the future generations to get involved because what I really want to know is: where’s the future?
“The older generations will let us know what town’s like for them and where they see it over the next 10 years, and that’s really important.
“But we also need to be talking about what we’re building for the next 20, 40, 60, 80 years.
“We want kids, students, the younger generations to feed into us what they want to see.
“The QR codes are in fixed locations across the town and it picks up through Google Maps wherever you are.
“It’s a pilot, it’s something new for people to engage with us, but for people who don’t use technology or if they’re not digitally enabled, we have walking tours around the town so we also don’t lose their voice either.”
The project comes as part of a national pilot to set a ‘design code’ for the town centre, with Mansfield one of 25 councils to take part in the scheme.
The authority has been awarded £120,000 to run the project, which will eventually guide the wider town centre ‘masterplan’ for Mansfield.
This 106-page masterplan set out new developments over the next 15 years and how historic sites – such as the former Town Mill pub and BHS department store – can be reused.
It also set out plans to redevelop areas like Dame Flogan Street into town centre housing, to use space under the historic viaduct for new, independent retailers, and plans a mixed-use square at the railway station.
And it proposes redeveloping Clumber House, on the corner of Clumber Street and Leeming Street, into student accommodation.
Andy Abrahams (Lab), the district’s mayor, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “For Mansfield to get the funding to trial this pilot, which is at the digital forefront of surveys, is really big news.
“You can put a pin into the system with a picture and let us know what you think of a certain part of town and what could be done to improve it.
“I think we’ve already had 100 hits on the website and, if you go online to Mansfield.place, it tells you all about what we want to do and how people can get involved.”
The formal consultation for the design code is expected to begin in March 2023, with the results of this pilot to guide how the code is written.
Once complete, the design code will set out the “principles, policies and guidance” for how Mansfield will be transformed in the future.
Residents can also have their say by visiting www.mansfield.place
