Ludlow river visitor centre plans are unveiled

The proposed River Heritage Centre at Dinham is intended as a visitor base for tourists, school children and ecologists alike. It will be the central point of a planned 80km Teme trail, as Ludlow is roughly in the middle of the river's length.

Plans were unveiled at the Mill on the Green, Dinham, at a drop-in day yesterday, which also acted as the launch of public consultation on the plans.

Ieuan Davies, project officer for Severn Rivers Trust which is behind the plans, said: "We've had very good feedback, in particular people have been talking about how good it is to do something educational. Getting children involved at such a young age should mean they will grow older wanting to look after the river."

The building plan shows an innovative eco-friendly building with education space downstairs and offices upstairs, which are likely to act as a base for the multi-million pound Heritage Lottery-funded Springs and Rivers Project to restore the River Teme.

Mr Davies said: "It hasn't gone to a planning application yet, so it is just a concept.

"We just want to get as many views as possible on it. We are consulting with local schools and businesses, just gathering as much feedback as we can."

He said the idea was also to work with local floodwatch groups as well as tidying up a wild area prone to vandalism.

"We'll be keeping the wildlife element – we are a team of ecologists, so we can do that in-house," he said.

Matt Spinks, architect with Johnson Design Partnership, behind the building, said it was hoped to act as an example of environmentally friendly, sustainable building, reusing stone from the demolition of a redundant building currently on the site.

He said there was a plan to work with the University of Wolverhampton to use the actual walls of the building themselves to monitor different types of insulation with special sensors – and show off the results in real time to visitors.

There will also be a feed from a live camera on the fish pass at nearby Dinham Weir, and the possibility of a hydro turbine-style mechanism to monitor the power and flow of the river.

"There will also be a lot of external things around the boundaries of the site, to get children doing things like pond dipping and making bird boxes," he said.

The planned building has an exoskeleton for its main structure, echoing the timber framing of many of Ludlow's old buildings, but making use of modern techniques to mean the interior space is more flexible, he said.

"Because of its location there needs to be an escape route in the case of flooding, so if you are on the ground floor you can get to the upper floor and still exit at ground level," he added.