Architect and client Rural Regeneration Cumbria in talks with investors and delivery partners about a £1bn investment into landmark culture projects across Cumbria.
A series of iconic buildings are set to be built in the Lake District national park. In what will be an exemplar project to be rolled out across other national parks architect Sheppard Robson is working on proposals for a series of "large scale schemes in beautiful settings".
The architect and client Rural Regeneration Cumbria are in discussions with investors and delivery partners about a £1bn investment into landmark culture projects across Cumbria, including a 1000-seat theatre and a screen complex, similar to that at IMAX in south London.
A scheme for a permanent performance space at Lowther castle, near Penrith, which includes a proposal for a festival on the lines of that at Glastonbury, is the furthest advanced.
A delivery partner has been agreed, though not named, and it has been put to the planning authority in the region, which has said it will fully back the project.
Tim Evans, project architect at Sheppard Robson, said: "This is the start of a new visioning process for national parks. There are going to be iconic new cultural complexes in the heart of the national park that will regenerate the whole region."
Sheppard Robson has drawn up a series of masterplans for key sites as part of wider rebranding in Cumbria.
This will include an international centre on British Romanticism at Grassmere, home town of the poet William Wordsworth, as well as landmark schemes at Kendal, Barrow-in-Furness and Morecambe in Lancashire.
