bbbrown wrote:I note that what you posted is guidance. Is it at all binding in regards to any red tape?
BB82 itself isn’t binding but the guidance is shaped by other statutory requirements, and I did mention the guidelines could be interpreted creatively.
The easiest to compromise on is total site area, though there are limits and it can have financial implications. For instance you can hugely reduce the area of playing fields if you provide all-weather synthetic pitches, but they’re more expensive than plain old grass. But total site area including pitches, could probably be reduced significantly with little adverse effect in terms of cost or curriculum.
The site area of the schools without pitches could also come in below the minimum recommended, but you’d be ill advised to reduce it by a significant margin. The more you constrain the building plot the more difficult it becomes to design something that’s efficient in terms of function, space and economy. Quality will suffer or costs will escalate or both.
It may seem curious but the bigger the plot you begin with the more efficiently you can use the space. It gives you greater freedom to lay things out logically. As plots reduce in size, and there's greater pressure to maximise the usage, it frequently gets more difficult to do just that. If I was designing a school on a big open site I'd deliberately start with a generous plot and maybe reduce it, rather than start small and shoehorn things in.
When it comes to the gross building areas I’d take the guidelines and chuck them in the bin. Build to those minimum standards and you’ll be building a piece of crap. They significantly underestimate the facilities now required in a decent modern school. I’ll take you through the implications for a Primary School if you really really want to.
And if anyone is alarmed by the possibility of the schools taking up 4.7Ha I have to ask.....what were you expecting?
People have repeatedly stressed that the existing schools are on a site far too small for their capacity. The logical step from that is that the site area of the proposed schools will have to be considerably larger. That strikes me as a fairly obvious even without putting figures to it.
And whilst the 11.2Ha figure is a large area, 6.5Ha of that figure is playing fields alone. Have you any idea how many playing fields that represents?
That could accommodate 13 regulation sized football pitches.
(Sorry Stephen, I'm semi-metricated. A minimum SFA regulation pitch is about 1/2 a Hectare.)
That’s a huge amount of green space (I’d say over-provision in terms of sport) and there’s no reason why a significant proportion couldn’t be readily accessible to the public.
When it comes the exact size of the schools and playing fields, at least in relation to remaining public park, I’d relax a bit. There’s flexibility to those issues. If you wanted to lose a few football pitches in order to have a bit more woodland that’s not a huge deal. If you wanted a 3 storey school instead of a 2 storey school that’s easy. We’re not talking major cost implications for those sorts of things. The overall costs will be similar however they’re resolved.
What’ll be less flexible is the extent of housing. Because that’ll be driven by those overall costs. A firm(ish) area for housing required will tell you far more about the implications for the site than the size of the schools.
