Lincoln City Transport Hub

The Lincoln Transport Hub involved complex stakeholder engagement as well as presenting numerous operational challenges from the outset. By working in collaboration with the council and other organisations involved, the team were able to collectively deliver a real success story for Lincoln.

City of Lincoln Council worked closely with their partners – the DfT, the GLLEP, Lincolnshire Co-op, Network Rail, Lincolnshire County Council and East Midlands Trains – to deliver the scheme.

The city council and its partners made every effort to keep Lincoln moving while it’s improving, but, inevitably with a construction project of this size and significance in a busy city centre, there was some disruption, but this was kept to a minimum.

A temporary bus station began operation in Tentercroft Street on August 2016.

The increase in height and scale of the Multi-Storey Car Park had to be very carefully considered, in order to avoid a detrimental impact on the protected views of the Cathedral.

A more space efficient solution was also required for the Bus Station in order to fit within the available area. Numerous permutations of the layout were prepared, each having to be proved by means of Swept Path Analysis for bus movements.

In addition, the loss of development land required that the Bus Station had to be relocated with the effect that it would now straddle a culverted section of a main waterway. This presented further challenges in terms of providing a design that would effectively span the culvert to avoid imposing any loads onto the structure below ground.

A further complication arose following the site strip at which point the height and extent of the culvert structure could be fully determined. Both the width of the culvert and the top level were far in excess of what was initially assumed. Again, we had to very quickly assess the impact of this discovery and further re-design the Bus Station to accommodate this.

City of Lincoln Council & their partners worked closely with the Local Planning Authority Conservation Officer and Historic England to ensure that the proposal was designed sensitively to take into account the setting and historic city.

Materials were carefully considered throughout in order to reflect the materials of the surrounding historic landscape.

The collaborative project in the heart of Lincoln provided a seamless transport interchange which has won the top accolade in the Infrastructure category at the East Midlands RICS Awards and compete at the RICS national finals in London.

Willmott Dixon worked alongside Thornton Firkin and John Roberts Architects to deliver the hub to meet the needs of City of Lincoln Council.

The modern 950 sqm 14 stand bus station opened in January and sits opposite the revitalised railway station access point, offering a wider concourse and enhanced public realm improving accessibility for passengers, including provision of cycle docking stations taxi bays, a bespoke coach drop off point and two bus lay-over bays.

The bus station has a new coffee shop, information desk, changing places and baby changing facilities, drivers’ welfare facilities, office accommodation and a control room/office. Improved shop mobility provision has also been incorporated into the scheme.

This project has also helped to unlock development of the wider retail areas of the city, offering further retail, office and residential accommodation. Indeed an initial phase of private investment in the Cornhill area adjacent to the station was recently completed.