Client: Artisan Real Estate
Architect: Axis Architecture
The Kirkstall Place development is located approximately 2½ to the west of Leeds city centre to the eastern side of the River Aire valley.
Historically, 2.43Ha site bounded by Kirkstall Lane, Kirkstall Hill, Beecroft Street and Commercial Road included 19th century housing, workshops and a large tannery. The challenging site has an average gradient of 1:9 with a 23m height difference across the site.
Post war redevelopment has removed all original structures on the site; save for boundary walls associated with the tannery.
Development in the 1970’s created a small retail park and a number of new commercial units. The last of the original buildings, the tannery, was demolished in 2005 and the retail park was abandoned in the mid-2010’s.
The regeneration of the site consists of 263 new-build dwellings, consisting of a mix of 2, 3 & 4 bedroom apartments and townhouses in nine separate blocks and commercial units.
Solution:Positive was appointed at the pre-Planning Stage to develop the site-wide infrastructure services strategy, working closely with the Planning Consultants to ensure compliance with the Leeds City Council Planning Policies.
Post planning, Solution:Positive was re-appointed to develop and manage diversionary works to the existing utilities infrastructure and the development and implementation of new site-wide infrastructure to serve the development.
This consisted of the installation of new mains water infrastructure and ultra-fast fibre Broadband & multimedia services to each property.
At planning stage, Planning Policy required electric vehicle charging provision for just 10% of the dwellings on the development. A change in Planning Policy post-Planning set a new requirement of electric vehicle charging provision for each of the 263 dwellings, which was a significant uplift and increase in the site-wide electricity load, requiring reinforcement of the existing HV network.
Negotiating with Independent Distribution Network Operators (IDNO’s), Solution:Positive was able to obtain the required supply capacity from a Point of Connection around 1km from the site and agree the establishment of the three additional substations on the site periphery so as not to impose on the concept of the master planning vision.
