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Reviving our heritage
One of the central tenets in good design and successful masterplanning is that new landscapes and buildings should complement the surrounding environment. In short, new places need to fit in with the old, and on many of our schemes, this means developments that respect a rich tapestry of local heritage and history, helping to give place-making a distinct identity.
At Connaught Barracks in Dover our proposals for the site must respect several Scheduled Ancient Monuments (SAMs) comprising the original fort and defences of the 1,000-year-old garrison town. Another SAM – the pithead and winding gear of the former colliery site at Chatterley Whitfield in Stoke, one of the finest surviving examples of 19th century mining technology – will be preserved for future generations.
And in Liverpool, Lime Street Station will be given a new lease of life as we transform the centre of a World Heritage Site into a fitting gateway for a major European city.
We take our duty of care towards historic buildings and landscapes extremely seriously, and have specialist heritage expertise within our National Consultancy Unit to advise and support our local delivery teams on all aspects of dealing with historic assets and policy.
Much of our focus is on the 96 sites included within our Hospital Sites Programme, which include many historic or listed buildings. At the Tiverton and Belmont Hospitals in Devon, where the listed buildings include the former nurses home, workhouse and mortuary, we are delivering a mixed-use community of around 100 new homes, as well as shops, offices and restaurants to strengthen the vitality of the existing town centre.
And at the former Lancaster Moor Hospital in the north-west, where we received outline planning permission in October, our conversion of the prominent Grade II listed annexe building into much needed apartments and townhouses will ensure that present and future generations benefit from the recycling of these precious historic treasures.
Lime Street Gateway, Liverpool page
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