COMMUNITY & SHARED LIVING

Again, there is strong local support for the co-mobility services, with an expressed wish that this service could be made available to the wider town as the development proceeds.

We have been encouraged to see that the proposals ensure that the new neighbourhood is inclusive of the whole community, including people with a full range of disabilities, people of all ages and all ethnicities.

Opportunities to overcome social isolation through the provision of shared gardens and facilities, such as laundrettes and the community canteen, were supported.

Actions arising

As well as prioritising the new homes and employment spaces for people with an existing Lewes connection, we have already started to make links with East Sussex College and schools in the town to test out what young people are looking for.

We know that they are committed to sustainable lifestyles, which will be the basis of life at the Phoenix. We also know that they are looking for green jobs and affordable homes in which to settle and start their families. We also know that they want to have places where they can have fun and enjoy themselves in the town.

Based on this, the new neighbourhood will provide new event and rehearsal spaces, building on our existing relationship with Starfish Studios and their youth music project, which is already located on the Phoenix. We will also provide a skate park, bouldering, climbing and other activities in the Soap Factory building which will replace some of the venues that were lost in recent times from the site.

We will provide training and apprenticeships in green construction methods, with jobs being made available to local people in the construction labour force. This will be supported by the provision of affordable accommodation in Spring Gardens, linked to the training courses, for young people who are starting out in their careers.

Actions arising

Shared living is at the heart of the new neighbourhood.

Based on the support for the cohousing project, work has continued with a steering group to take forward the establishment of a formal steering group to work with Human Nature on more detailed proposals.

The DAS includes proposals to ensure that everyone, regardless of ability, ethnicity, age or gender will be able to confidently, with dignity and independence enjoy all the facilities made available in the new neighbourhood, including a choice of homes, accessible services and opportunities for people to flourish and contribute to the community. The aim is to support the creation of a cohesive community which fosters diversity, social interaction and the growth of a sense of belonging to the neighbourhood and the town of Lewes.

The streets, gardens and other communal spaces such as the squares, will be designed to be fully inclusive, providing people with opportunities to meet, work together and get to know each other as part of the day to day life of the new neighbourhood.

Apprenticeship scheme in sustainable construction provided in partnership with East Sussex College.

Development will support shared living, including a co-housing project.

New public square responds to a strongly expressed need for the plan to provide communal social spaces.

Work And The Economy

Issues

During the consultation process, it became clear that there is a strong desire for the new neighbourhood to provide work space designed to be used by the growing makers’ business sector in Lewes, including makers’ light industrial workshops and studio space for tech businesses. Our workshop on this issue identified the following priorities:

There was highest demand for basic, flexible workspaces with natural light that would cater to dirty and clean creative industry professions.

Attendees said they’d be happy to share many facilities, including: storage, kitchen, toilets, workspaces for one-off projects/classes, communal meeting space, access to outside space.

Attendees supported the idea of a shared makers’ space to access courses, tools/equipment, rent a workbench/desk/studio for project based work and one-offs.

Those working in clean creative industries are in need of private studios and offices and a higher specification of space. Provision of co-working space was also supported.

Consultees also asked that there be some retail on the site, to meet the needs of the new residents, as well as restaurants and bars to support the social life of the new neighbourhood. From the wider consultation process it was clear that the economic benefits of the new neighbourhood are as important as the social and environmental ones, given the economic challenges that the town faces.

Issues

Whilst there was concern expressed by some about building in the floodplain, there was general agreement that the response to flood risk should include the ability to manage potential flood water from heavy rain (pluvial flooding) on the site as well as defending the site physically from the risk of flooding from the river (fluvial flooding).

Consultees wanted to make sure that climate change allowances had been built into the modelling of the flood resilience measures.

FLOOD & THE RIVER

Fred Labbe from our consultants Expedition has spent a good deal of time engaging with local residents, including the residents of the Phoenix area, the Pells and St John’s Neighbourhood Association and the Pells Pool Community Association to explain the proposed approach to flood defences and how they will provide protection to their homes as well as the new development.

The design of the flood protection and its visual impact from the eastern bank of the River Ouse has been raised as a concern.

Attendee at the Phoenix Design Festival

Actions arising

Foundry Workshops and the Makers Yard will provide workshop space primarily aimed at young people looking to establish new makers’ businesses, with shared facilities and services, including tools and equipment, kitchen, and teaching space.

Studios, office spaces and live-work units will be provided in the ground floor of Phoenix Square to be made available for creative businesses – eg. architects, graphic designers, tech businesses. Business advice and training will be available to start-ups.

Spaces of varying sizes will be available to rent or for short-term hire, with turnover rental for start-ups being available if required.

Retail spaces for local businesses are included in ground floor locations along North Street. Restaurants, a taproom and a hotel are all included in the application, responding to the consultees’ requirement for hospitality to be provided on the site, as well as contributing to the tourist economy of Lewes.

All together, there will be 139 additional jobs at the Phoenix with £3.9mn of new spending in the local economy from the new residents, visitors and workers at the site.

During the construction phase there will be 525 people employed, of which 173 will be new jobs. Many of these jobs will be available for local people through the development of a direct labour force. There will be an on-site factory creating the timber framed cassettes that will be used to make the new buildings using local timber, with the local labour force being trained in modern methods of construction through a partnership with East Sussex College and working with local green construction businesses such as Kind Construction who are already based on the site. The College already has teaching facilities at the Phoenix and the new courses in green construction are due to start in 2023.

Actions arising

The proposals include a new, permanent flood defence wall that will prevent flooding of the site. The proposed flood defences will ensure that the site is protected from the equivalent of the 1 in 200 year flood event including the necessary climate change allowance.

The flood defence has been carefully designed to avoid creating a barrier or eyesore along the river, allowing for the creation of a new habitat on the river edge to soften the visual impact of the wall. The defences are partially integrated within some of the buildings along the river. Elsewhere, they incorporate the new riverside walkway – The Belvedere. As the flood defences are so fundamental to the scheme, they have influenced the design approach to create something meaningful and attractive, not just functional.

Pluvial flood attenuation will be achieved with rain gardens which can double up as productive landscapes and community and play spaces, have a carbon positive footprint and a prominent reminder in ‘landscape-led’ terms of the riparian landscape of which this new urban neighbourhood is a part.

The Pells area, including Pelham Terrace, parts of Talbot Terrace, and the Pells Pool plant area will also benefit from flood defences which have been discussed and agreed with local residents. The Flood Defence Strategy submitted with this application provides the detailed description of the approach being adopted.

139 new jobs at the Phoenix and 525 construction jobs, including 173 new construction jobs.

Space provided for studios, workshop space, office space and live-work units.

New event and rehearsal spaces.

Hollistic approach to flood management – including new flood wall and rain gardens –will also benefit the Pells area.

12.

DELIVERY, STEWARDSHIP & GOVERNANCE

Issues

Consultees were interested to know how Human Nature was going to ensure the long-term delivery of the proposals, beyond the 8 year construction period for the development.

People also wanted to know how the site services were going to be maintained, given that the proposals depend on major infrastructure investment creating a range of site-wide services, including the energy and utilities services, public landscapes and gardens, internal roads, and the flood defences, all of which will require long-term maintenance.

The Affordable Housing and Working Group members also asked how the affordable housing was to be managed.

13.

Living Cultural Tradition

Issues

Many people in the town have strong and fond memories of the site and its role in the life of the town. Some remember the foundry and other industrial activities on the site and the jobs and community that they supported. Others remember the more recent past, when the site provided a home for over 40 businesses, including manufacturing, catering, music, wellbeing, professional services, artists and venues.

The cultural heritage of the site is contained in both the activities and the buildings, with the Foundry Workshops, the Every Hall and parts of the Soap Factory being non-designated heritage assets of local significance.

We have been strongly encouraged through the consultation process to retain a link to this heritage both physically and in the way we seek to build the employment and community enterprises that will form part of the new neighbourhood.

Actions arising

The delivery of the project will be managed by Human Nature, working with its contractors and partners. This will involve the implementation of the Construction and Environmental Management Plan, ensuring that construction minimises the impact on neighbours during the building of the development.

With respect to the management of the site, Human Nature is committed to the long-term stewardship of the Phoenix and will set up governance mechanisms to ensure that this happens.

This means that Human Nature will set up an Estate Management Company that will maintain all the common spaces and services on the site as well as managing all the residential and commercial leases. This company will have representation from residents and tenants on the board, ensuring that the neighbourhood is focussed on the needs of those who live and work at the Phoenix. Over time we would anticipate that one or more residents associations would be established, the members of which could take shared responsibility with the Management Company for the maintenance and improvement of their common areas, including the courtyard gardens.

Human Nature is also currently establishing a number of venture companies to run the services on the site, including the co-mobility services, the energy service, the community canteen, and the reuse centre. These ventures are again part of Human Nature’s commitment to the longterm stewardship of the neighbourhood and its way of life.

Finally, Human Nature is committed to retaining some of the assets on the site, which may include the affordable housing and the commercial space. For the affordable housing component, we are in the process of registering Human Nature as a Registered Provider of affordable housing.

Actions arising

Human Nature has recognised both the strength of feeling and the importance in planning terms of building on the living cultural tradition embodied in the Phoenix. While many of the buildings are beyond their useful life, some, including the heritage assets, still have plenty of life in them and so their structures will be retained. The Foundry Workshops, the Every Building, The Soap Factory and Phoenix House will all be retained in some form. But they will be rejuvenated, providing space for new businesses and new life on the site, playing their part in the next generation of activity at the Phoenix.

In doing this work we have taken advice from local experts, who have contributed to the heritage sections of the DAS. As they reminded us, this part of town was never like the High Street but it is as importantly part of the character of Lewes and the project must make the link from this to the next phase of Lewes’ evolution as a place of making and work.

Human Nature are committed to the long term stewardship of the site, seeing to an Estate Management Company that will maintain all the common spaces and services on the site as well as managing all the residential and commercial leases.