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NEWS INDUSTRY UPDATES

Each month PSBJ rounds up the latest public sector construction updates, from new contracts to industry awards.

Carter Jonas achieves planning consent for the Perse School in Cambridge

National property consultancy Carter Jonas has secured planning consent on behalf of the Perse Upper School for a substantial new sports centre, which will include a swimming pool, sports hall, climbing wall and changing village, together with associated car and cycle parking and landscaping. Consent was awarded by Cambridge City Council on 5th October 2022. The new 2706m2 facility will be located within the Perse School’s existing campus on Hills Road, to the south of the city centre. A Community Access Agreement, to be secured by planning condition, will enable local people to use the facilities either through affiliation with local sports clubs or on a ‘pay-and-play’ basis. This will include early morning and evening swimming two days a week in addition to weekend family swimming session. Each week, local residents will benefit from 45 hours of access, rising to 80 or more during the school holidays. A contractor has been appointed and construction is expected to proceed as soon as pre-development planning conditions are approved by the city council. Alison Shakespeare, Bursar of The Perse, commented: “We are extremely pleased to have achieved planning permission for this exciting project. Carter Jonas have been involved from the outset, and their help and advice has been invaluable.”

The UK’s most outstanding recent building projects went head-to-head for top national accolades at the RICS Awards Grand Final, where the Erne Campus of South West College in Fermanagh, the world’s first educational building to achieve the highest international standard in environmental construction, won the RICS UK ‘Project of the Year’ title. Nominated by Hamilton Architects, Erne Campus, which was completed earlier this year, was chosen by the judges as the overall winner based on its impressive sustainability credentials, which will see it yielding an anticipated 90% reduction in energy costs for the college. Accommodating 800 full-time students, 2000 part-time students and 120 staff, the campus is one of the world’s most sustainable educational buildings, having secured both Passivhaus ‘Premium’ and BREEAM ‘Outstanding’ accreditations. At 8000m2, and representing an investment of £34m, the project has been recognised as one of 26 UN Centres of Excellence for High Performance Buildings, ranking alongside the Apple 2 campus in California. Earlier this year, the landmark building won the Public Sector ‘Project of the Year’ award in Northern Ireland at its regional RICS heat, which led to the project being automatically entered into the national RICS Awards Grand Final. Work is underway on a new transformational learning space for Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) children at East Hunsbury Primary School. The school has teamed up with Wellingborough-based Timotay Playscapes to plan three distinct areas for pupils aged four and five. Features include a role play village, an outdoor learning zone (with ‘deluxe’ mud kitchen), creative studio area, water play, climbing apparatus and a construction area complete with gravel pit, sand pit, trike and cycle area, as well as a ‘show time’ performance stage and storytelling area. In April 2022, East Hunsbury was confirmed as a ‘Good’ school following an Ofsted inspection, and this investment in its EYFS facilities is another sign of its commitment to building on that success with the quality of learning and teaching going from strength to strength. The EYFS area, which is due to be completed this month, is the latest development in a long-term building and maintenance programme. Recently, the school’s specialist unit that teaches 50 children with profound and multiple learning difficulties, underwent a refurbishment, which included a new sensory room.

Leading social housing repairs and maintenance provider, Wates Living Space, has grown its southern property portfolio with three projects on behalf of Brent Council, St Mungo’s and mhs homes. The projects include the refurbishment of four high-rise blocks on behalf of Brent Council, including external wall insulation, heating and lift refurbishments. Work for Brent also includes retrofit installations to increase home efficiency following Wates’ successful retrofit pilot on behalf of Brent Council, which reached completion at the end of 2021. The project saw the Wates Retrofit team install energy-efficiency measures in void properties, taking them from an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of E to B, exceeding the Government’s 2030 target for social housing. Also included in Wates Living Space’s new contracts is a six-month programme to install new kitchens and bathrooms for 36 properties across north London on behalf of St Mungo’s. The team is also preparing to mobilise a two-year contract to install new kitchens and bathrooms for mhs homes properties in north Kent. The new projects add to Wates Living Space’s current portfolio, which includes repairs and maintenance for 500,000 homes on behalf of 60 social landlords.

Major investment in transformational learning space at East Hunsbury Primary School

Sustainable Enniskillen college campus is RICS UK ‘Project of the Year’ Wates expands southern presence with contracts collectively valued at circa £33m

Historic Mighell Street is reinstated at Edward Street Quarter in Brighton

A Victorian street, which was lost to demolition in the 1970s, has been reinstated at Brighton’s newest neighbourhood Edward Street Quarter. Developer Socius alongside investor Patron Capital reopened Mighell Street and has marked the entrance with a public art gateway, which will welcome visitors, residents and workers. Steve Eccles, Director at Socius, said: “Reinstating historic Mighell Street is just one of the major milestones in our development and we are excited that office staff and residents will be able to walk down this road once again. It was important for us to forge links with Kemptown’s heritage and we wanted to bring back this lost street to revive a piece of Victorian Brighton. Mighell Street will be lined with food, beverage and leisure businesses, as well as offices and homes, where our first residents have already moved in, putting this thoroughfare truly on the map once more.” Mighell Street was named after Philip Mighell, who was a local landowner at the end of the 18th century. The new gateway has been designed by master sculptor Casto Solano of British-Spanish studio Solart. Edward Street Quarter comprises 125,000ft2 of Grade A office space, as well as 20,000ft2 of leisure, retail and hospitality units. The development is being jointly developed by Socius, First Base and Patron Capital Partners.

A Cornish construction and professional services consultancy has generated an added social and economic value of £34.9m as a result of its work with Cornwall Council over the past three years. Mace Ward Williams Joint Venture (MWJV), which is a joint venture between Mace and Ward Williams Associates, has released its annual report. This follows its third year of work with Cornwall Council on the £650m construction and infrastructure capital programme of investment within the Built Environment Professional Services (BEPS) Framework. The added social and economic value has been achieved through the creation of new jobs, facilitated training and via spend with local and small businesses. Jeremy Dunn, MWJV’s Managing Director, said: “In the built environment sector, we know that we can have a more profound impact than is often understood, and this overview of our work to date reinforces that.” MWJV works with its wide network of local and national suppliers to bring expert and costeffective project management, architecture, engineering and surveying support to a range of programmes across Cornwall ranging from transport, schools, town regeneration and housing. Sleek, sustainable and striking, the recent development by Haslob Kruse + Partners fuses past and present with an expansive wooden exterior made with Kebony wood, which was selected to house over 60,000 precious maritime artefacts at Germany’s National Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven. Clad entirely in sustainablysourced Kebony Character wood and containing 2300m2 of depot space, the German Maritime Museum houses an extensive collection of archival materials and museum objects, preserving Germany’s maritime heritage with a forward-thinking and ecoconscious approach to architecture. Designed with a focus on modernity and eco-conscious construction, the German Maritime Museum has harnessed the latest developments in warehousing, air conditioning and technology, whilst simultaneously making use of sustainable materials in the construction process. The result is a museum depot, which is vast in size, but grounded in environmentally-sound practice that also offers a solution to concerns about limitations in space to contain this precious historical collection.

The Centre for Ageing Better is launching a new network of local authorities looking to work collaboratively to address the nation’s inadequate housing stock. Partnering with sector leader Foundations, the Good Home Network will bring together local authorities from all over England to share learning, encourage peer support and motivate innovation in home-improvements services locally. A recent survey carried out by Ageing Better highlights the urgent need for the network with more than four out of five (83%) responding local authorities stating there is a need to address poor-quality homes in their area. The network builds on the work of the Good Home Inquiry to find new ways for local authorities to improve homes in their area.The inquiry identified the need for each local area to provide easy access to information and advice, finance, home repairs and adaptions essential for improving the nation’s housing stock.The Good Home Network will enable local authorities to reflect on the existing situation within their community and share ‘what works’ in addressing poor-quality housing. Health and social care bodies will also be engaged to ensure a holistic ‘whole-home’ approach is adopted.