Construction,
planning and development
Members of the project team at construction consultants Edmond Shipway in Nottingham are delighted that the £50 million BIG Lottery Fund bid for a programme to revamp the county’s prestigious Sherwood Forest Visitor Centre has received full planning permission.
The bid will now be submitted
to a television vote in December.
Edmond Shipway has been appointed and is working on
behalf of a partnership of 16 organisations led by
Nottinghamshire County Council
Key to the plans is what project manager and Edmond
Shipway partner David Stevenson believes is the
heart and soul of the proposals – The Tree, a new
visitor complex built to an iconic design but with
its design rooted in the environment and the history
of the region.
The Tree will provide the central visitor
information centre for the whole Sherwood area, an
education and discovery centre, state of the art
exhibition and interpretation facilities telling the
story of Sherwood and the Robin Hood Legend, a
sustainable technology centre and retail and
refreshment outlets with further meeting spaces and
events facilities.
Since January this year, David Stevenson and his
team at Edmond Shipway have been working closely
with the design team that will turn the Sherwood
Forest project into reality.
Edmond Shipway compiled the design brief and then
facilitated a RIBA-managed competition on which
Nottingham Evening Post readers were able to vote
and help select the winning entries.
The team now includes MAKE architects whose Ken
Shuttleworth spent nearly 30 years working for Sir
Norman Foster and was involved in the design of the
“gherkin” building at 30 St Mary’s Axe, London. Arup
are engaged as consulting engineers, with Davis
Langdon as quantity surveyors and RYB Konsult as M&E
engineers.
David Stevenson said: “Sherwood Forest has enormous
potential and we are hopeful that a Big Lottery Fund
investment in this unique national asset could help
us realise the dream for this project which has the
working title ‘Sherwood: The Living Legend’.
The aim is to transform Sherwood Forest into a world
class sustainable zero carbon destination, with
energy from wind turbines, willow coppicing to fuel
its own biomass boiler, and a sustainable drainage
system. In so doing we aim to create an
inspirational community resource for current and
future generations.”
Mr Stevenson said that the project had several
exciting components. As well as The Tree, the scheme
would see the development of 95km of public access
routes, 300 hectares (400 football pitches!) of
forest replanting and up to 50 community projects –
all to be made possible by The Big Lottery Fund.
“Since January we have been working on the design
development and a full environmental impact
assessment for the planning application and the
committees decision to grant permission is a major
milestone in our vision for the future of Sherwood.”
The Tree is intended as an iconic gateway for
Sherwood Forest and central to the project has been
the requirement to disperse the economic benefits to
the wider Sherwood area and Nottinghamshire region.
The Sherwood Forest Visitor Centre is a major
national enterprise that the three partners and a
total of 40 staff at Edmond Shipway’s Nottingham
office are justifiably proud to be leading and it is
arguably their flagship project in what has been a
very successful three year period of sustained
growth for the Nottingham office.
Email:
andy@asap-pr.com