Regeneration designs for Cheltenham’s Minster Gardens are unveiled

Members of the public will be able to see for the first time how the grounds of Cheltenham town centre’s medieval St Mary’s Minster are about to be transformed.

The team behind the Minster Gardens project, which won £229,000 from the England European Regional Development Fund, hope the revamp will help regenerate the town centre site off Church Street.

Designed by Cheltenham-based Ares Landscape Architects, the plans have been approved by the Diocese of Gloucester, the borough council’s planning team and are supported by Historic England, Cheltenham Civic Society and Gloucestershire County Council.

The scheme supports the adjacent £6.8 million Minster Exchange (MX) project, the GFirst LEP-funded 20,000 square feet new-build workspace and headquarters for Cheltenham Festivals and a branch of the county-wide Growth Hub business support network.

Designed by architects Edge Design Workshop for Workshop Cheltenham, with Evans Jones helping the project win planning approval, MX will also have strong links to the nearby Brewery Quarter cyber business co-working space, Hub8, and the forthcoming Golden Valley Development near GCHQ.

Councillor Rowena Hay, leader of the borough council, said: ‘The transformed gardens, together with the wider Minster Exchange transformation, will create a new, vibrant and creative quarter in Cheltenham for all to enjoy.’

David Ball, chairman of the Diocese of Gloucester advisory committee, called the project ‘imaginative and well-designed’.

The designs will be on public display at St Mary’s Minster from Monday 21 March until Saturday 27 March 2022, from 11am to 1pm, and on Sunday 28 March 2022 from 12pm to 1pm.

Work is expected to start this spring and be complete ahead of the opening of the Minister Exchange in early summer 2022.