On this large valley bottom former industrial site close to the centre of the Gloucestershire market town of Wotton-under-Edge, we designed a retirement village and nursing home complex for our clients, Roberts Walsh Projects Ltd. The site adjoins the town’s conservation area and the scheme affects the setting of a number of historic buildings. We used both physical and computer generated models to analyse the emerging design, test its impacts and communicate them to neighbours and town’s folk at a series of public consultation meetings.
With large numbers of the population now living into their eighties and nineties and demographics indicating that the proportion of those doing so will increase in years to come, schemes such as this will play a very important role in increasing housing options for the elderly and releasing existing but under used housing stock back into the community.
At Potters Pond, we have linked several existing footpaths to create a pattern of pedestrian movement across the site so as to relate the site’s use for elderly persons’ housing and a community nursing home with daily patterns of movement and activity. Giving residents a pleasant outlook, changing views, attractive landscaping and community facilities in which they can have a genuine interface with the community are all important goals.
