The Seam Digital Campus, Barnsley: Where a car park became a community

Location

Yorkshire / North

Client

Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council

Architect

ONE Environments

Partners

Willmott Dixon (principal contractor), Gavin Jones / The Nurture Group (external landscape), MKM Building Supplies

Sector

Public Realm / Urban Regeneration

The project

The Seam Digital Campus is the centrepiece of Barnsley’s designation as the UK’s first government-backed Investment Zone, a long-term bet on a town that has had to reinvent itself more than once. Phase One, which opened in March 2026, began not with offices or tech infrastructure but with the ground beneath them.

County Way car park, an uninspiring stretch of tarmac in the town centre, has become a 4,700 sqm public park. Designed by landscape architects ONE Environments, the space organises itself around three distinct zones — a Biodiversity Garden, a Digital Garden, and a Town Centre Link — connected by a central community plaza. Three monumental Yorkshire Rose sculptures by artist Tim Ward, standing up to 15 metres tall, provide vertical drama and double as light and sound installations for events.

The park sits alongside the neighbouring Barnsley College SciTech Hub, making it as much a daily amenity for students as a destination for residents and visitors.

How we helped

The brief for the seating came with clear parameters. ONE Environments specified grade 304 satin-polished stainless steel frames with Wood Plastic Composite slats in an Iroko colour finish, a warm and considered combination within a green setting, performing reliably in a high-footfall public space.

We supplied seven bespoke Zenith Horizon benches, each 1,830mm long with two centre armrests and a root-fixed installation. The WPC slats are smooth-planed and splinter-free — an important detail in a space designed for broad public use, including families and older visitors. Critically, the benches were specified without finger-trap risk points, meeting both safety requirements and the practical expectations of a space maintained by a local authority.

Discover Zenith

WPC was the right call for a council-managed public space.

It requires no painting, sealing, or chemical treatment, and its maintenance amounts to an occasional wash down. At an expected lifespan of 25 to 30 years, the whole-life cost compares well against timber alternatives that typically need retreating within the first few years of installation.

Learn more about WPC

The outcome

The park opened as Phase One of a longer story, but the public realm decision was made at the start: this would be a place for people first. The benches are positioned throughout the gardens to encourage dwell time rather than throughput, marking the difference between a space people cross and one they choose to stay in.

For Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council, the specification also addresses green procurement obligations. WPC uses post-consumer recycled plastics and waste wood fibres, avoids chemical sealants that could leach into the Biodiversity Garden’s soil, and is reground and reused at end of life.

The Seam is still taking shape. But the public realm — the park, planting, sculptures, seating — was always going to be what people experienced first.