Design Competition Vision & Requirements.

Vision.

The vision for the redevelopment of the White Hart Street site is to create an exemplar residential scheme that respects the heritage of Mansfield in particular the historic significance of the site itself at the same time as looking forward to the future.

The current budget available for this development is £14m (which includes costs of demolition, remediation, construction, additional survey costs and all professional fees (including Planning and Building Control)). However the Council will be seeking grant funding to help with the clearance and remediation of the site and may also seek grant funding towards the cost of the construction of the new dwellings. The budget may therefore increase to an estimated £19m however this will not be known until Spring 2024. Designers need to work to the base budget but may wish to consider additional options which would reflect this uplift in the budget.

Requirements.

The requirements of the development are shown below:

A mixed residential scheme for older people and families consisting of apartments for older people and a mix of family housing

●

Older persons apartments

The Council wishes to provide secure apartments (a mix of 1 bed and 2 bed) for active elderly people. On-site care will not be provided however the Council does provide an ASSIST Service which helps elderly people live independently in their own homes. The main area of support is a 24 hour emergency response service monitored by a Lifeline system. There should be one office space for two people included within the older persons accommodation.

The majority of the apartments should be 2 bed and all apartments will have telecare product technology. The apartments must include evacuation lifts to allow all people to independently escape the building in the event of a fire.

The apartments should provide internal communal areas suitable to the size of the building to promote social interaction amongst residents. This will include small kitchen facilities (not commercial kitchens) for residents to use with adjacent seating areas to facilitate low level social function/gathering and possibly reading rooms. The communal areas will be managed by the Council.

This should also extend to providing secure external, landscaped communal areas for residents to enjoy which again will be managed by the Council.

There should be provision for lockable storage of cleaning equipment and cleaning materials and external communal bin storage and external scooter stores for charging and storing electric scooters.

Each apartment will have provision for washing machines and driers. There will be no communal laundry provision.

The apartments should where possible reflect the Housing Our Ageing Population Panel for Innovation (HAPPI) principles.

All older persons accommodation will be owned by the Council and rented out at an Affordable Rent. This is defined as a rent of up to 80% of an open market rent.

●

Family Housing

Where possible a range of size and type of family housing should be allowed for ranging from 1 and 2 bed apartments through to 2 and 3 bed houses.

The majority of the family homes will be owned by the Council and rented out at an Affordable Rent. Consideration may be given to some of the family homes being provided for shared ownership.

●

General

All dwellings should meet the Nationally Described Space Standards and the Lifetime Homes Standard and the development as a whole should meet the requirements of Building for a Healthy Life (2020 edition). The properties and the development should also meet the Secured by Design standards.

Policy IN10 of the Council’s Local Plan addresses parking provision for new developments. The Council has not yet adopted an up to date standard and therefore paragraph 9.59 in the Local Plan is relevant whereby the Council applies the Nottinghamshire Council Highways Design Guide requirements. This guide is provided as additional information.

Where a lower level of parking provision is proposed the Nottinghamshire Council Highways Design Guide states that this must be justified by calculating parking demand in accordance with DCLG ‘Residential Car Parking Research (2007)’ or by local surveys. The Residential Car Parking Research for Nottinghamshire is also available as additional documentation.

All residential accommodation to be energy efficient and provide reduced carbon emissions

●

It is a priority of the Council for all its residential developments to have regard to the effects of housebuilding on the climate and energy efficiency for its tenants. To that end the Council developed four houses to the Passivhaus standard by way of a pilot development in 2022 and over the course of 2022/23 to 2023/24 will be developing 99 new homes to the Future Homes standard based on the performance outputs discussed in the consultation process.

All homes in the development must meet at a minimum the Future Homes standard (2025) but where possible and dependent on the budget a number of Passivhaus dwellings would be encouraged.

Incorporation of green open space for residents but also green public realm

●

As referred to above the tenants of the apartments should be able to enjoy secure green open spaces attached to the apartment blocks for their exclusive use. These should be considered as extensions to the buildings providing “outdoor living spaces”. These spaces should be able to provide sunny but sheltered outdoor seating areas with design features appropriate for an aged population.

All houses will have defensible spaces and secure gardens suitable to the size of the house.

Importantly, the development should provide a green public realm to contribute to the greening of Mansfield and in particular the town centre.

Incorporation of sustainable drainage systems

●

The Council is currently working with Severn Trent Water who is investing £76 million in the district of Mansfield on a range of nature-based solutions to protect communities from flooding.  They aim to install 20,000 sustainable drainage systems across the district and this will therefore be a critically important consideration given the flood risk designation of the White Hart Street site.

Severn Trent are targeting funding towards brownfield developments and this scheme may benefit from their investment. Initiatives being considered as part of their investment include verge rain gardens, street planters, swales, detention basins, permeable paving and tree pits.

All new developments in Mansfield Town Centre should seek to deliver sustainable drainage systems that exceed the minimum technical requirements for storage and infiltration and mitigating extreme weather events. Advice on the technical requirements for town centre schemes can be sought from the Lead Local Flood Authority.