Detailed information on the Proposed Wilberforce House Development

Transcription

1 October 2017 Detailed information on the Proposed Wilberforce House Development This leaflet is to inform parents, neighbours and other interested parties about building work proposed at Wilberforce House in the coming year. Up to date information and detailed drawings are available on our website, and comprehensive proposals will be contained in a Planning Application at the end of the year. This will be available to everyone as the detailed design nears completion. In the meantime, we want to keep everyone informed of our intentions, and seek full engagement with our community of parents and neighbours, so that we can answer any questions and take your views into consideration. The intention is to make a Planning Application at the end of the year and to build during a fourteen month period July 2018 to August 2019, allowing two significant summer holiday periods to minimise disruption, when the school is in recess. Scope of the works The 6 single storey classrooms to the south of the existing hall will be dismantled and rebuilt on two floors, together with an additional hall/performing arts space. The two storeys of classrooms will allow us to provide better accommodation for the girls whilst maintaining the same approximate footprint so there is no significant loss of green or playground space. The new accommodation has been carefully designed; set back from the historic Octagon building located to the west, and to provide first floor accommodation within a pitched roof design so that building heights are kept to a minimum. The design follows a number of detailed pre-application meetings with London Borough of Merton (LBM) and consultations with Historic England, where we have incorporated all comments received. The new facilities will include: 6 new classrooms for girls in Years 1, 2 and 3 - larger, lighter and airier than existing rooms. A new multipurpose performance hall, which will enrich the life of the school for pupils from both houses, creating additional space for a wide range of activities. Its improved acoustics, lighting and tiered seating will provide a new experience for pupils and parents for drama productions, concerts, and dance. On a day-to-day basis, the hall will also give valuable new scope for indoor play, clubs, workshops and assemblies. A large open-plan library which will be a stimulating and flexible learning environment, in a stunning, brightly-lit space with high vaulted ceilings. A new visitor entrance and lobby, with exhibition space and front of house office space, giving a welcoming, contemporary feel. Accessed away from the car park, it will ensure a safer, friendlier entrance to the school. 1

2 New break-out spaces to enable more scope for smaller group work. Re-landscaped playgrounds, to enhance the external aesthetic of the school and the girls leisure time. Why are we doing the work? The Study has a joyful atmosphere but is contained within very dated classrooms, designed in the 1970s for a different time and not updated since. The buildings are almost 50 years old and are small by modern teaching standards. They suffer from excesses of hot and cold weather due to inadequate insulation. The corridors and toilets feel cramped, and, most importantly, there are insufficient numbers of rooms to meet the needs of modern teaching methods, which recognise the importance of smaller group work and differentiation. During the last 5 years we have considered all sorts of refurbishment and minor extension options, but none of these meet the demands without more major works. As the single storey nature of the buildings makes them quick and simple to dismantle, our architects and engineers have concluded that it is more cost-effective and practical to dismantle and rebuild. The result will be much higher quality, future-proof accommodation. Rebuilding the southern half of the school outright, within a 14 month period, is also safer and will involve less disruption to both the school and the neighbourhood, rather than endlessly tinkering with the building over an extended period. We have long been aware of the need to improve our buildings, and have planned and budgeted carefully for this work. We now feel in a position to launch the project in a prudent, well-informed way which will minimise disruption while maximising necessary improvements to the school. Our Approach to Development Our approach is to build only when we are satisfied there will be significant educational benefits to the pupils of the school, both now and in the future. All girls from both our sites (including Spencer House in Peek Crescent) will benefit from the new facilities. The project has been conceived with a senior team of Project Managers, Architects and Engineers who specialise in the unique aspects of designing high quality school buildings. Crucially, they are also experienced in the day to day operational, safety and safeguarding needs of a working school. Our philosophy is always to invest in comprehensive and quality advice at the earliest opportunity, to minimise the risks associated with any building project. This is not an exercise to enlarge the school population. Pupil numbers will remain the same. Apart from occasional evening performances, there is no intention to use the improved facilities out of hours, so our neighbours should not notice any significant changes to the pattern of people or traffic movements to and from the school. We are continuing to improve our transport plan with increased use of minibuses at drop off and pick up times and we continue to strive for less vehicular movements near the school. We are acutely aware of local disruption to parking and car movements and the inconvenience this causes our neighbours and are constantly working to improve this. 2

3 Practical Issues Safety, Safeguarding and Learning: Our priority is of course the safety, safeguarding and education experience of the pupils and staff, and to respect our neighbours during the building work. The pupils in Years 2 and 3 will be re-housed in high quality temporary classrooms. (See further below.) Redeveloping the entire southern half of the site will allow us to completely separate the building work from the day to day workings of the school. The builders will have a separate entrance to the site. Privacy and safety of the girls will be maintained with substantial and decorated hoardings around the entire perimeter of the site. There will be no access from the building site into the school. Parking and Traffic: Access to and from the building site will be carefully controlled to minimise disruption to all. More details will follow, but it is our intention to avoid deliveries during drop off and pick up times. Contractors staff will be asked to park remotely from the school so that local parking is not disrupted any more than can be helped. Staff too will be asked to park remotely from the school during the build as the temporary classrooms will be sited in the current staff car park to the north of the hall, furthest from the building work. Once the works are complete there will be no decrease in on-site parking, and the status quo will be maintained. Temporary Classrooms: The Year 2 and Year 3 girls will be educated in the highest quality temporary classrooms, unrecognisable to those of us who might have experienced huts in the past, which used to be either too hot or too cold. Today s classrooms are spacious, light and airy. They are well insulated and exceed the thermal properties of the classrooms that will be replaced. The temporary classes will be located on two levels within the current car park to the north, with complete security and privacy and remote from any vehicles. The upper levels will be accessed via a proper internal staircase, and there will be an external staircase also, with all the features of a more permanent structure to ensure complete confidence and safety of use. The classrooms will be decorated internally to make them our own. Pupil drop off and pick up: This will continue much as now, with access to and from the playground nearest the Almshouses. Additional adult supervision will be provided to ensure the builders are not operating or blocking the way, with safety paramount. The Building Work Maintaining the safe learning and playtime environment of the girls will be the absolute priority during the period of the build. There are various aspects of the construction which have been deliberately chosen to reflect this. All of the occupied teaching spaces will be located to the north of the existing hall, i.e. the Reception classes, Year 1 and relocated Years 2 and 3. 3

4 Any lifting of materials and use of hoists will take place within the confines of the building site to ensure there is no risk of falling debris near the occupied school or playground spaces. A small amount of the playground space nearest Camp Road will be allocated to building site deliveries to ensure good separation and safety. This will result in slightly less play space temporarily and will be reinstated as soon as the building work finishes and it is safe to do so. (See enclosed sheet) Every effort will be made to improve upon minimum environmental standards for noise and dust to reduce disruption to both the school and local residents. We will provide extensive details of how this will be achieved and any Town Planning Consent will insist that strict guidelines are adhered to. Matters such as road and pavement washing and sweeping will take place throughout each day. We are well aware of the difficult nature of deliveries and large vehicles in the area, particularly Camp Road where all deliveries of construction materials will be made. We will prepare a detailed transport and deliveries management plan to address this. The key features will include: timed deliveries, with vehicles waiting in more distant roads until they are called to site for a specific time period, no deliveries during drop off and pick up, highways management staff to liaise with residents, car users and members of the public to ensure safe manoeuvres, unloading and turning around. A regular newsletter will be sent to neighbours to keep them informed of progress and any significant deliveries. The number of deliveries and heavy vehicle movements will be substantially fewer than when the nearby housing developments in Kinsella Gardens and Cedar Park Gardens were built. Various methods of construction have been selected to ensure a speedy form of construction with minimum noise and dust. These include: a b c d The dismantling of the 1970s building will take place in the summer holidays in 2018 when the school is closed and local houses and streets are less occupied. Its low rise and simple masonry wall and timber roof construction will allow this to take place quickly to minimise noise and dust to local residents. The new build approach, rather than to refurbish and extend over many years, will allow modern prefabricated forms of construction to build quickly and cleanly. The new steel framed structure will be erected in a matter of a few months. All upper floors will be steel and timber (not wet concrete) which are both quick to build and clean materials, minimising dust and dirty roads. The modern roof will be quick to build and the envelope will quickly be watertight. The construction will be closely controlled by chartered professionals from consultancy professions including project managers, planning and transport, quantity surveyors, architects and engineers. The building work will be supervised by the professional team and the selected contractors will be chosen only from those who not only work on school projects, but are also quality checked for safe working in and around schools and are considerate contractors in neighbourly terms. The construction programme of 14 months is considered ample, and the bulk of the work will take place in 12 months leaving time for the school to prepare for the new academic year. In summary, the project has been planned like a larger scale commercial project in fine detail and we have every confidence it will be built in a timely fashion and to budget. 4

5 Building Design: The design has evolved over a 5 year period when refurbishment options were ultimately rejected in favour of a new building providing clear advantages to all concerned. The design team has been in place for 2 years and we have invested in highly-regarded consultants in all relevant professions to ensure the project is of the best standard and proceeds smoothly. The same team recently completed the refurbishment of Spencer House; on time and under budget. Early drawings, including plans and elevations are available on our website and in the consultation packs provided. The design has a number of specific characteristics: a b c d e f g h i j k The new classrooms are larger and brighter than those they replace. They will exceed Building Regulations requirements for every aspect of the environment, health and safety, and disability access. The building design and natural ventilation system is aimed at achieving excellence in matters of energy conservation (BREEAM), as the school takes its social responsibility very seriously. It is crucially set back from the historic Octagon building to allow that building to continue to sit prominently on the site. This follows extensive discussions with London Borough of Merton Planning and Conservation departments and Historic England. The 2 storey building is required to fit sufficient modern day accommodation on the site without losing significant green or play space. The height of the building has been minimised so that the roof line does not compete with the roof of the Octagon. The upper floor of classrooms is set within a pitched roof with sloping ceilings as part of this objective. The height and design of any first floor windows has taken account of any right of light or neighbourly privacy issues and is in line with Town Planning policy. The visitor experience will be safer and more welcoming with better separation between pedestrian and on site vehicle parking. The overall design is modern to reflect contemporary architecture and the forward-looking philosophy of the school but uses traditional materials such as brick and timber, and high quality materials generally, to create a design of substance and longevity. The architectural design has been inspired by local detailing of houses characterised by pitched roofs and high square bay windows. The interiors will be light and vibrant, with an airy and contemporary feel. Lots of wood has been used to provide a feeling of warmth, particularly in all ceilings including the new performance hall. The performance hall will be a considerable improvement since the old hall currently vies for too many uses, particularly in winter and wet weather lunchtime play with conflicting calls for sport, drama, school meals and indoor play. The new hall will allow multiple activities to run concurrently and will enhance the performing arts specifically. The new hall will have tiered seating to improve viewing of performances for parents. development@thestudyprep.co.uk 5