We wanted to hear from the community about expanding the Bedford and Courtney Street reserves, North Melbourne, into a larger pocket park. To increase the impact of community feedback, we linked this conversation with discussions about the feel and function of the local streets in the same neighbourhood following the construction of a new bike lane in Peel Street.

Between 28 April and 24 May 2021, we gathered your insights via:

• Most respondents were male (56 per cent), with 42 per cent female and 2 per cent non-binary or gender diverse
• Eighty per cent of respondents lived locally
• The youngest participant was 8, whereas the oldest participant was in their 80s; the majority were aged between 26 and 44 years old.

Feedback regarding Bedford Street Pocket Park

The pop-up activities asked participants to reflect on some proposed Bedford Street Pocket Park ideas (PDF 1 MB) as well as giving people an opportunity to add their own ideas.

Your top three suggestions for improving Bedford Street Pocket Park were:

• Improve current recreational offerings with BBQs, casual game areas, a play area for children and more seating and picnic tables.
• Create a new green area by closing the slip lane from Capel Street to Peel Street and expand Courtney Street Reserve.
• Convert road space and some parking bays to create more green space around Bedford Street Reserve.

Feedback regarding neighbourhood streets

To improve the feel and function and increase the safety and connection of the local streets, your top suggestions were:

• Use increased signage, lighting, street art to utilise opportunities offered by the Capel-Peel laneways
• More localised parking permits that prioritise residents
• Create better pedestrian crossings
• Replace gravel landscaping
• More tree planting on Capel Street.

Overall there was great support for the park expansion and greening ideas, along with many suggestions for opportunities to improve local streets. We look forward to sharing with community how these have been considered in our concept plan for Bedford Street Pocket Park and in other local projects going forward.

We will progress the Bedford Street Pocket Park as a priority, and we will be coming back to you soon to share the detailed Concept Plan with you and any related streets initiatives.

Next steps in this project include finalising the concept plan, and seeking the necessary approvals to allow us to build the park.

The Bedford Street Pocket Park project is supported by the Victorian Government through the Local Parks Program.

From April to May 2021, we engaged the community on the Improving Our Neighbourhood Streets and Parks initiative, which explored opportunities to improve livability and accessibility in North Melbourne. The ‘parks’ aspect included presenting an idea for the Bedford Street Pocket Park, which focused on increasing open space and greening.

From 1 to 29 September 2022 we shared our draft concept plan for the Bedford Street Pocket Park and invited feedback via an online survey. We welcomed community feedback on our design and asked if a BBQ would be a useful addition. As the design included proposed changes to roads, we also invited written submissions as part of a separate statutory road discontinuance process that ran at the same time as the community consultation.