Plans submitted for Uni & HCA accommodation

[ragwert]

Planning application for a 178 bed accommodation campus on the car park Station App have been submitted.
The accommodation will be for Hereford College of Arts & Uni students.
An application for a stand alone ancillary commercial element will be submitted at a later date.
There will also be somewhere in the grounds art work possibly sculptures made by HCA students.

Application P183841/CD4

[twowheelsgood]

Hereford boldly moves forward ... into the 1960's. Tragic.

[Denise Lloyd]

Not even local companies involved says it all really

[Ubique]

That building is a real blot on the landscape - nothing more I can say .

[Cambo]

Did they steal the drawings for this monstrosity from some old spy who came in from the cold from the former Soviet Union?

along with the design of the super surgery down the road  the poor old trains station is going to look well out of place stuck in between these two ugly sisters!

[ragwert]

Looking at the finer detail in the access statement the finer details look hell of a lot better than the bland artists impression.

[ragwert]

Planning application here. Design Access statement on right.

https://www.herefordshire.gov.uk/info/200142/planning_services/planning_application_search/details?id=183841&search-term=registered in the last 7 days&search-service=recent&search-source=items&search-item=registered in the last 7 days

61 letters sent out to varios properties around the development  for their feedback with just 3 responses.Says it all really

[megilleland]

1 hour ago, Denise Lloyd said:

Not even local companies involved says it all really

The Council call it a partnership. It's where public meets private.

[Cambo]

 

if you were someone returning to Hereford after a few years,of being away,you could be forgiven for think that the old John Venn building,in bath street had been moved to the bottom of Aylestone hill…if returning from that direction!

No it’s no good she’s still ugly…so how much is this ugly sister going to cost us more or less than her equally ugly sister down the road?

[twowheelsgood]

1 hour ago, megilleland said:

The Council call it a partnership. It's where public meets private.

This looks like a PFI as 'engie' are the only party with any money - Wikipedia says they are a French multinational electric utility company, headquartered in La Défense, Courbevoie, which operates in the fields of electricity generation and distribution, natural gas, nuclear and renewable energy. I don't see any partnership with the Council indicated, save that they own the land. Which begs the question, will they be selling it to to at least recover the £x million they paid for it?

[Maggie May]

34 minutes ago, twowheelsgood said:

This looks like a PFI as 'engie' are the only party with any money - Wikipedia says they are a French multinational electric utility company, headquartered in La Défense, Courbevoie, which operates in the fields of electricity generation and distribution, natural gas, nuclear and renewable energy. I don't see any partnership with the Council indicated, save that they own the land. Which begs the question, will they be selling it to to at least recover the £x million they paid for it?

Thank you twowheelsgood as this explains the design behind this new building - to me it looks like it is an electricity generating/transformer station converted to be student accommodation!

Why would you put any accommodation on this junction with trains/cars surrounding it? Surely this should be where a low level multi storey car park should be along with bike racks/hire and the transport interchange between buses/rail, etc? What has happened to the transport hub we were promised as part of the City Link Road scheme?

Weren't the University going to make it compulsory that to attend you had to live in their student accommodation? Student accommodation can be a big earner for many Universities so perhaps the Council provide the land, Engie build the Blott on the Landscape & then they cream money off the students who have to live in the accommodation throughout the year. This is not like other UK Universities which have long summer breaks/reading weeks (do you even have to read to attend Hereford?) but where you study full time and for over 40 weeks p.a. 

[megilleland]

House builder Keepmoat signed an agreement to sell its regeneration arm to French energy services giant ENGIE for £330m in February 2017.

Cabinet member contracts and assets. Thursday 24 May 2018. To approve the contractual arrangements for the development and regeneration programme

In July 2017 cabinet approved Keepmoat (specifically Keepmoat Ltd) as the preferred bidder for the council’s development and regeneration programme. When Keepmoat Ltd were shortlisted for the procurement the company had two subsidiaries: Keepmoat Homes Ltd and Keepmoat Regeneration Ltd. The bid from Keepmoat Ltd proposed that the projects on the DRP would be delivered either by Keepmoat Homes Ltd or Keepmoat Regeneration Ltd depending on whether the main focus of the project was private residential properties for sale. These projects would be delivered by Keepmoat Homes Ltd and Keepmoat Regeneration Ltd.    

During the tender evaluation process, on 30 April 2017 a transaction took place whereby Keepmoat Ltd transferred the regeneration business of the Keepmoat Group to ENGIE Services Holding UK Limited (Engie) (registered in England and Wales with company number 08155362), a member of the ENGIE group (the ENGIE Group).

[megilleland]

11 hours ago, twowheelsgood said:

This looks like a PFI as 'engie' are the only party with any money

From The Budget yesterday

Private Finance II (PF2) – The government has considered the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and its successor PF2, in light of experience since 2012, and found the model to be inflexible and overly complex. The OBR’s FRR also identified private finance initiatives as a source of significant fiscal risk to government. PF2 has not been used since 2016. The Budget announces government will no longer use PF2 for new projects. A new centre of best practice in the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) will improve the management of existing PFI contracts.

and for students:

The government continues to explore options for the sale of wider corporate and financial assets, where there is no longer a policy reason to retain them and when value for money can be secured for taxpayers. This is an integral part of the government’s plan to improve the public finances:

Student Loans – In December 2017 the government completed the first in its programme of sales of pre-2012 income-contingent student loans, expected to raise £12 billion by 2021-22. The sale raised £1.7 billion, reducing PSND, and was assessed as value for money by the National Audit Office. The government will now extend the sales programme by a further year, increasing total proceeds to £15 billion.

[megilleland]

34 minutes ago, megilleland said:

Student Loans – In December 2017 the government completed the first in its programme of sales of pre-2012 income-contingent student loans, expected to raise £12 billion by 2021-22. The sale raised £1.7 billion, reducing PSND, and was assessed as value for money by the National Audit Office. The government will now extend the sales programme by a further year, increasing total proceeds to £15 billion.

How to write off student debt: my plan for Labour
Danny Dorling in The Guardian today

The party has promised to end tuition fees – but needs to think about young people who have already racked up £30,000 of debt

In summer 2012, English tuition fees suddenly tripled to become the highest in the world. Young people choosing to go to university had no choice: for the vast majority it was huge debt or no degree.

Not sure how much of this is rent for accommodation.

[ragwert]

I don't think any visualisations in this video will look anything like what will be built
https://www.facebook.com/bbcherefordandworcester/videos/hereford-city-link-road/1809780209094379/

[twowheelsgood]

Although the application states ‘student accommodation’, you have to drill quite deeply to find the justification for this application. The Design and Access Statement offers no explanation. The Planning Statement eventually reveals;

• The site is primarily to serve as accommodation for students of the Hereford College of Arts and as such the scheme has been designed to achieve a high quality of internal light and space both internally and externally for the display of artwork. (They explain the HCA is planned to double in size by 2022).

• The proposed development would meet the needs of Hereford, as it would provide much needed purpose-built student accommodation commensurate with, and to serve, the on-going expansion of the Hereford College of Arts and also potentially students of the new NMiTE University. In so doing, and in any event, the proposals will contribute towards the wider regeneration of Hereford City Centre, and would enable the release of houses which are currently in use as Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) by students back to much needed family accommodation.

• One of the main design drivers has been keeping the sense of travel from the railway station towards the town centre through the heart of the scheme.(!)

[megilleland]

12 minutes ago, ragwert said:

I don't think any visualisations in this video will look anything like what will be built
https://www.facebook.com/bbcherefordandworcester/videos/hereford-city-link-road/1809780209094379/

Quite right Ragwert. Forgotten how little green landscaping included - especially where the houses front the road.

[Roger]

How much car parking is factored in for this 178 bed unit? Students' miraculously seem to afford cars! 

[ragwert]

12 hours ago, Roger said:

How much car parking is factored in for this 178 bed unit? Students' miraculously seem to afford cars! 

Non for students Roger.There are a few electric car charging points and I think four disabled car park spaces.
There is a large bike parking area for 80 cycles

[Roger]

12 hours ago, ragwert said:

Non for students Roger.There are a few electric car charging points and I think four disabled car park spaces.
There is a large bike parking area for 80 cycles

A fair few sixth form college students' have cars' at the existing campus. They dump them anywhere they can to get to lessons. We all know where! I would never accept that 6 car park spaces is feasible for a new build of that size. It (the build) buys into an aspiration of non car use. But that won't be the reality. We are nowhere near getting to a point where a car is redundant in Hereford. How many forum members' have ever seen a student frantically peddling up the cycle lane on Aylestone Hill to get to their lesson? It's the most underused cycle lane ever! An aspirational imposition that has never come close to achieving it's aim.