May 1, 2010 Conservation Area, Green Belt, Listed Buildings, WaM

The BCA – Stakeholder Update, March 2020

Estate strategy update (stakeholders)

 

As many of us are aware, the College is custodian of a number of grade 1 and grade 2 listed assets. These include the listed house and gardens, a statue, bee house and driveway. The College draws the majority of its funding from the Department for Education (DfE) who provide a revenue stream to support the education of young people and vulnerable adults only. Years of use and lack of capital for repairs, maintenance and restoration now mean that the heritage assets are in a very poor condition and have the potential, not only to go beyond reasonable repair, but also to present a significant health and safety risk to students and staff.

The College was successful in 2018 in securing a restructuring grant and loan from the DfE to remedy its educational deficit (long term loan) however they are very clear that, whilst they recognised that the biggest financial risk to the future of the college was the heritage deficit associated with the assets, they were not set up to provide any capital to support our request.

However, because of the importance of securing appropriate capital for the repair and restoration of the heritage assets, the DfE has funded our proposed planning application.

They have been clear though, this is the most that they can do to support us.

As collective trustees of these assets we are asking for your support and counsel to assist us with the realisation of the capital that we need for our heritage deficit. These funds would be used wholly and exclusively for the listed assets and not for any educational or college development or expansion. It is our intention that, as part of the restoration programme, we restore and convert the South Wing of the mansion to office space which would be held in trust in perpetuity solely for the benefit of ongoing repair and maintenance of the heritage assets.   This rental income, estimated to be approx. £30,000pa would help us to ensure that the College would have no future requirement for campus development to support the listed assets. In this way we would be protecting the heritage building and estate for the future use and enjoyment of generations of people to come.

 

Following the advice of government regarding COVID-19 we have converted our presentation into a web format to ensure we can still update you and obtain any feedback you have.

 

To ensure it is fully clear we have extracted the text from the Display Boards prepared to ensure the information is clear.  The text on the boards is a repetition.  We hope it is clear and you can see the progress we are proud to be making.  If you have any questions or comments please send an email to:

ben@wamarchitecture.com

We will endeavour to get answers to any questions you may have.

Many Thanks

Welcome to our presentation to update you on the progress of the works outlined in our exhibition last year.  Over the past 6 months, considerable evidence and research has been collated to provide a comprehensive analysis of the extent of the level of work and financial costs to restore, maintain and upkeep the important Heritage buildings which sit at the heart of the College.
We now have a detailed and fully costed understanding of the “Heritage Deficit”

The Heritage Deficit

This fundamental planning principle states that, given the constraints to development here, the scale of any enabling development must be directly and exclusively related to the size of heritage deficit.  The detailed costing has highlighted specific areas of work and looked at costs related to works required in the here and now as well as likely costs moving forward.
The focal areas of work are:

The Main Grade 1 Listed Hall Place
The South Wing
The North Wing
Clock Cottage
Grade 2 Listed Walls & Statues
Main Driveway
Diane Statue
The Bee House

The Estates Plan

We have produced an Estate Plan which is a comprehensive assessment of the College’s accommodation needs and an analysis of potential development options to fund the Heritage Deficit.
The key conclusions of the draft Estates Plan remain:
This will require some reallocation of uses within the buildings including reconfiguring the South Wing as commercial space to generate a revenue to fund the ongoing maintenance of the historic buildings once the restoration and repair work is completed.
The need for new development is therefore focused on that purely required to fund the heritage deficit.

Previous Development Options

The Heritage Deficit is considerable and requires both a capital sum to be generated by an enabling development and a revenue stream to fund future on going maintenance.
There have been a number of options explored previously to provide the necessary capital surplus to fund the heritage deficit.
1.  Proposed Care Village. LPA Ref: 16/02814/FULL
2.  Development of Former Sewage Works
3.  Development of the site at Honey Lane
The Care Village application in 2016 on land to the south of the College sought  to address the Heritage Deficit as well as longer term funding issues however ultimately the perceived harm was felt to out weigh the benefits.  Importantly the estimate of the Heritage Deficit at the point of this application was considerably lower than has actually be calculated now.
The Public Exhibition held last summer presented various options to key Stakeholders.  Following that meeting 2 options were developed for Pre Application discussions explored development on the former Sewage Works within the body of the campus,  and the creation of a small group of houses fronting Honey Lane on the Western Edge of the Campus.
Following further detailed work, consideration of the feedback from Stakeholders and Officers  we have focussed our work on the Honey Lane Option and developed this further.

The Proposed Development Options.

The critical requirement of the chosen route is the ability to create both a cash surplus and a revenue stream.

Capital sum for Heritage Deficit –  Honey Lane Development

Revenue Stream for ongoing maintenance costs – South Wing rental income

Land at Honey Lane

The Heritage Deficit figure informs and drives the amount of development we must deliver at Honey Lane to ensure there is the necessary capital sum at the end of the process to fund the works.   These have been costed by specialist Quantity Surveyors, Selway Joyce.
The fundamental principle of the Enabling Development is that the level of development is directly proportional to Heritage Deficit.
Kempton Carr Croft have prepared a development appraisal which informed the amount of development we would look to deliver on the Honey Lane site

Planning Process

We are preparing more detailed pre-application submissions which we are seeking to present to the Council in April 2020
The pre-application submissions will form the basis of an outline planning application in Summer 2020.
Associated List Building Applications for the heritage works and conversion of the South Wing will also be prepared.

Next Steps

Conclusion of pre-application work
Submission of further detailed Pre Application
Preparation of Outline and Listed Building Planning Applications

Timetable

Parish Council and Stakeholder meetings – March 2020
Second Pre Application submissions to RBWM – April 2020
Submission of Outline Planning Application and Listed Building Consent Applications – Summer 2020

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