Planning permission was granted in Sept 2016, and the time for judicial review has passed. Preparations are underway to begin Phase 1 of the redevelopment, which is at the eastern end of the site.

Mace resumed their community liaison group meetings last week, where they keep key players informed so that we can inform everyone else.

Mace brought along their likely construction partners, SDC Construction (see their website here: https://sdc.co.uk/). We heard from their MD and site manager about the way they plan to work. They’ll have a full time on site community liaison manager, who we can contact about any problems. One interesting thing is that they are a company owned by their employees, sort of like John Lewis, That means they are not answerable to shareholders and so are not after the cheapest solution. They are ‘considerate constructors’ to whom their good reputation is the most important thing. They have a clever plan to mitigate some of the construction traffic problems: they’ll hire space in the Seacourt Park & Ride for workers to park, and will run a shuttle to move workers between parking and the site. Good idea, I thought.

Occupants affected by Phase 1 (toward the eastern end of the site) will be moving to their temporary facilities beginning in January. Seacourt Hall and the Library will be re-homed into the precinct, and Andrews Dry Cleaning is moving into the old motor parts shop in Elm’s Parade.

Demolition for Phase 1 is scheduled to begin toward the end of Q1, and will take 3-4 months. Details will be available on the SDC and Mace websites, and once those are up and running the link will be widely available. There will be a webcam broadcasting 24/7. Might be a fun project for someone wants to regularly capture them and make a time lapse film of it? Who’s up for that?