Redefining small cities: breathing new life into St Albans
David Rowsell, Area Director for Morgan Sindall Construction – Northern Home Counties, reflects on how developers can protect historic elements of a city while embracing modern and sustainable design, and how this has been applied to their ongoing regeneration project in St Albans.
Britain’s core cities reinvented themselves in the post-industrial era and skylines today typically feature the gleaming towers of mixed use schemes and large scale developments that compete to offer the most attractive urban centres to live, work and play. To anyone who knew what Newcastle, Birmingham, Manchester and other UK cities were like in the 1970s, the transformational place-making has been nothing short of miraculous. Yet Britain is not done changing.
The next major revolution to change our city streets is likely to revolve around what a person can do and where they can go within just a 15-minute walk – with the aim being to have everything a resident or business needs situated within this space, including offices, parks, leisure venues, hospitals, restaurants, etc.
The Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, started the trend for talking about a 15-minute city during her re-election campaign early last year as a way to encourage more self-sufficient communities. Since then, this concept has been embraced by city authorities and planners around the world thanks to its potential to create neighbourhoods that actively reduce travel and stress while creating more balanced urban spaces that offer a better quality of life.
Cutting down on travel will inevitably minimise carbon emissions, so in addition to making cities that are better for people, this theory could have significant environmental benefits. Its green advantages means the concept aligns closely with the government’s Net Zero agenda and is a likely candidate for the mix of solutions that will be required to solve the critical climate challenges we’re facing.
All of this makes the 15-minute city model an attractive concept, but what I feel is often overlooked is just how well suited our older and smaller cities are to delivering this type of innovative built environment. As with all regeneration, there needs to be a project that can catalyse change and showcase how these principles can be implemented in practise. This is the type of project that we are seeing take shape at the Civic Centre Opportunity Site (CCOS) in St Albans.
The CCOS project, which is due for completion in late 2022, will replace an aging NHS clinic and police station with a vibrant, multipurpose quarter, adding significant value to the St Albans townscape. The £60 million urban regeneration scheme will see the creation of a five-storey, mixed-use site with 93 residential apartments and 6,000 square metres of commercial and retail space.
A number of innovative techniques have been used during the site’s development, including modern methods of construction (MCC) and offsite solutions. An example of this is the bathroom pods in the apartments, which are delivered to site fully formed so that they can be instantly installed. Thanks to this, we could be assured that all the assembly and components are factory quality and we’ve reduced the number of deliveries to site as well as the quantity of waste generated.
The multifaceted nature of the development exemplifies how formerly single-purpose spaces can become more versatile areas. To ensure that the development would deliver what the people of St Albans wanted, we’ve been working closely with both the local authorities and residents. This has been helped by the fact that we could build on an already strong working relationship with St Albans City and District Council, with whom we’ve collaborated closely with in the past. To make sure the completed site meets the needs of the residents, we put several designs up for a public vote and moved forward with the chosen plan.
While it’s important that our cities evolve, much of our collective history is reflected in central urban areas and these are spaces that communities will not want to see disappear. At CCOS this was a vital consideration, as the new structure would be built around a 17th century Quaker Garden. To protect this crucial piece of the area’s heritage, we collaborated with Quaker Friends on the designs and incorporated the space into the project by opening up the garden’s entrance, demarcating the area and making it a key part of the new site.
This project is a great illustration of how a holistic approach to creating new developments can help cities adapt and better reflect contemporary living, working and leisure requirements. Achieving this requires a careful consideration of the environmental, cultural, economic and wellbeing values that are important to the local community. By paying close attention to these factors, we will ensure that the centre of St Albans provides a futureproof environment that fulfils Hidalgo’s objective for a 15-minutes city, which is one that invents “a new history without forgetting its past”.
Photo supplied by Morgan Sindall Construction