Visiting the New Castleford Pedestrian Bridge

Today a few of our group went to Castleford, where a new pedestrian bridge had been opened recently, as part of the Castleford revitalisation program. It had been featured recently on Channel 4's Kevin McCloud and the Big Town Plan. In our group was of course Brian, who held everything together and knew all the people who had some relation to the bridge, as he had been a main advisor in this project. There also was Jenny Marsden, one of the writers in this project, and Porl Medlock, an award-winning photographer.


Photosynth of Castleford Footbridge, seen from South-East.

We walked across the bridge, and my task was to record the coordinates on GPS. The picture here shows the GPS track of two roundtrip walks across the bridge. The bridge itself is not seen in older satellite photos, hence just the image of the river.


GPS Tracks of Castleford Footbridge.

The footbridge is not very far located from the road bridge which bears a lot of vehicle traffic.


Another Photosynth of the Castleford Footbridge. Scroll to the right to see the old road bridge over the Aire.

Jenny then interviewed the "champion of the bridge" Wendy Rayner who mentioned that now there is even Salmon to be seen in the River Aire, since the heavy industry had disappeared from the river banks. Back on the bridge, Brian talked to a few teenagers who were enjoying the foot-bridge.


Brian's interview of the teenagers.

We then went to the Sagar Street Gallery to see an exhibition by Heather Parkinson, a painter who is also a friend of Brian. Her pictures display a connection with water - she was interviewed by Jenny.


Photosynth of Sagar Street Gallery, Castleford. It is located south of the foot bridge

This was the first "action" day in which we collected images, video, and data. I captured all the sounds with the in-ear microphones for true head-related stereo.