High Life: A Walk into the Future?
Part of the AoU's Summer of Walking programme, taking place in Lincoln
The AoU's Summer of Walking, part of our 20th anniversary celebrations, is a programme of tours curated and led by our members, bringing together urbanists across the UK to explore interesting, alternative, or just plain great urbanism by foot. Click here to see other tours taking place this summer.
Keep an eye on the AoU newsletter, where more tours will be announced and reminders sent out.
Date: Friday 8 August 2025
Time: 11:00
Location: Lincoln, England
Curated by: Steve Kemp
Distance (approx): 3.5km
Duration (approx): 4.5 hours including stops for lunch / refreshments
Please check your booking confirmation for info about the meeting point for this tour.
About the tour
Our starting point, Lincoln's uphill Cathedral and Castle area - generally thought of as the city's "historic core" - isn't really what we've come to see, but it provides context for what will follow. The place we really want to spend time in is quite a bit further south, downhill, beyond the main shopping area and definitely the other side of the tracks. We will set off down Steep Hill (AoU Great Street Award winner 2012) and move fairly quickly through the pedestrianised areas, pausing briefly to take in the most recently revived area, the Cornhill Quarter.
From there, we will walk on and into South High Street. The places we'll have passed through will have been the warm-up for this, the main act: Lincoln's most diverse, vibrant and, perhaps, most challenging street and neighbourhood. This is where Roman, Mediaeval, 19thC Industrial, and Modern Lincoln all combine in an historic street that's simultaneously, messy, beautiful, chaotic, full of life - yet neglected - and full of potential.
This is perhaps more typical of Britain's High Streets than the more obviously pretty places where we started our walk. We will spend time getting to know this part of the city. We'll eat here; we'll take-in the street's life as it is; and we'll try to envisage its possible futures.
About Steve
Steve defines placemaking as "a process of working with communities to shape places so they can support the well-being of all the people whose lives connect in them and with them, now and in the future”. Through his planning and placemaking studio, OpenPlan, Steve makes this the focus of his work, whether in the East Midlands, where OpenPlan does much of its UK work, or in the West Indies (Caribbean) where Steve and his colleagues have worked with many island governments and communities over the past 20 years. He moved to Lincoln over 40 years ago, to work as a planner with the City Council.
Having successfully led the production of Lincoln’s first Local Plan and been instrumental in securing a city centre campus for Lincoln University, he moved to independent consultancy in 1999. His work has embraced places in England and across the Caribbean ever since. Throughout this time, walking in and out of the City Centre along South High Street has been a constant in Steve’s working and personal life - he’s seen the street change hugely in this time - and he’s now helping to shape future change - looking at what works, and what doesn’t, listening to the people who live and work and run their businesses here, looking at what’s being done in other places and thinking about what can be done here. That’s what this walk is all about.
Please note: All refreshments are provided at your own expense unless otherwise stated.
