The Fairytale of Burscough Bridge

Budget: £1 Million

Project Team: BCA Landscape & Smiling Wolf

Awards: Landscape Institute Award 2008, RTPI Award 2008, West Lancashire Design Award 2009

A complete renewal of the public realm through this busy village, which sits astride the A59 between the Leeds to Liverpool canal and Southport to Wigan railway.

The Fairytale of Burscough Bridge celebrates modern creative life beyond the city; presenting the successful realisation of a contemporary design project within a rural context. It is a bold and adventurous scheme that enriches the sense of identity in the Lancashire village.

The scheme involved the creation of a series of new small interlinked squares and pedestrian routes (previously full of parked cars and clutter) – animated with bespoke furniture, paving, artworks, lighting, signage and a village clock. A collective notion of identity is a notoriously complex idea to pin down. Ultimately it is the little things that have meaning and these woven together form a greater picture.

“BCA Landscape is without doubt one of the most exciting landscape practices in Britain today… their designs work as allusive artworks with many shades of meaning, a reflection of the cultural complexity of a human settlement as old as Burscough Bridge.” – Tim Richardson – writer and landscape critic