Our sports facilities at the Hitchin campus are in urgent need of  upgrading. Our sports hall is nearly 50 years old, has a leaking roof and high maintenance costs.

Our sports curriculum is changing to reflect national priorities and industry expectations. We need to ensure that our facilities are modernised and fit for purpose to deliver higher level technical qualifications.

The new facilities will include a multi-purpose sports hall with changing areas and a gym, a new 3G football pitch and sports science teaching facilities.

Having industry-standard facilities will enable us to remain a successful college and help meet the demands of the local economy now and in the future. NHC students will gain the skills and competitive edge they need to gain employment in the sports and leisure industries.

To offset the loss of the existing grass pitches, we will be providing a new 3G Pitch at The Priory School in Hitchin. This will be made available for community groups to use and represents a significant investment in the quality of playing pitches within the Hitchin area.

To facilitate our new proposals, we plan to sell a portion of our land to CALA Homes (North Home Counties) which, in addition to helping improve the college, will also help to meet local demand for new homes. CALA will create new homes on the south east side of the site, including public areas of open space.

The residential part of the development will comprise a high quality and considered scheme. Landscaping and the provision of public open space will enhance the scheme and it is being designed to minimise the impact on the existing, adjacent residential properties.

Placemaking and good design is at the heart of CALA’s ethos and this is embedded in our approach to the development across the site.

Our new sports centre will be a modern, attractive facility that meets the needs of our students and improves our offer to the wider community.

It will include a gym and large multi-purpose sports hall which will contain four badminton courts, as well as changing and showering facilities with direct access to the new football pitch. Our new 3G artificial grass pitch will be an improved replacement for our current pitch, based on the most up-to-date standards to provide a high quality playing experience.

We will also be investing in improved sports science teaching facilities. Our new sports facilities will be open to the community, providing an exciting new amenity for the area and promoting engagement with sports and healthy lifestyles amongst people of all ages. The facilities will be designed to be welcoming, inviting and easy for students, staff and community users to both access and find their way around.

The redeveloped facilities will support high quality teaching and learning across a broad sports curriculum. They will allow our students to develop the skills that employers in the sports industry expect, and so prepare them for work in a growing sector that offers good career opportunities for young people.

The building of new homes is an integral part of the scheme as these homes are required to finance the much needed new facilities for the College. The homes are proposed on land which is now surplus to the needs of the College.

CALA Homes has a strong track record in delivering high quality new homes in the Hitchin area. Located near to the station and the amenities of the town centre, this is an excellent opportunity to create a new residential development in a highly sustainable
location.

Working alongside the Council, we are developing the scheme to ensure the development addresses the identified housing need in Hitchin and North Herts through a range of house types; including affordable homes. We expect to build around 120 new homes on the site.

Since the last event, we have worked up more detail on the proposals and have started to develop streetscene drawings and sections that show how the levels work across the site. Feedback from the earlier event showed that people wanted to understand how the new homes would relate to existing buildings and we have therefore drawn some sections of the site to demonstrate this.

In addition to the avenue of trees alongside the college buildings leading to the residential part of the site, we will also be providing a tree lined north-south corridor to link the open space with the rest of the development.

We have removed some of the flat blocks which backed on to the homes to the south of the site as people wanted these located more centrally, away from existing dwellings.

To reduce the visual impact of the development to the river and meadows, we have pulled the built form further back, creating a larger amount of open space.

SPORTS FACILITIES
To deliver a sports hall that is environmentally responsible, our approach will be based on low energy design principles. We will aim to minimise our use of energy through effective building design and efficient use of services.

High levels of natural daylight to reduce the need for artificial lighting will be considered within the design wherever possible.

The internal and external lighting design will provide the correct quality of lighting, minimise energy input and reduce internal heat gain. We will seek to minimise the use of water and reuse water where feasible. We are also exploring the feasibility of a range of low and zero carbon technologies including air source heat pumps and solar panels.

NEW HOMES
The new homes will meet stringent building regulations which require reduced energy and water use.

TRANSPORT
A green travel plan is being developed to reduce carbon emissions. Items under consideration include proposals to encourage more cycling, electric vehicle charging points and a car club.

The site falls within Flood Zone 1 and is therefore deemed to have the lowest risk of flooding by the Environment Agency.

The drainage for the whole site will be designed in accordance with the requirements of Hertfordshire County Council who are the Lead Local Flood Authority for the area, and the National Planning Policy Framework.

The drainage strategy will employ Sustainable Urban Drainage techniques (SuDS), designed to slow the rate of discharge from the site to a rate which does not exceed the run-off from the undeveloped site. This will therefore not increase the risk of flooding either on the site or elsewhere off the site.

We have reduced the size of the ‘dry pond’ from the earlier proposal as we are now looking to make greater use of soak-aways. This results in a larger, more usable area of open space.

We are continuing our discussions with Herts Highways to ascertain the safest way of accessing the site and ensuring acceptable levels of traffic.

Many people were concerned over the levels of additional vehicle traffic associated with the development and there were also requests for controlled pedestrian crossing points on St Michaels Road.

Subject to planning permission, we propose that vehicle access to the residential site should be via the current entrance to the College at the top of St Michael’s Road.

Since the last meeting, we are further exploring the acceptability of a right turn filter lane on Cambridge Road which would provide access to the site without holding up vehicle traffic on Cambridge Road. This would form part of a package of off-site improvement works to help mitigate the impact of the proposal.

We have received a number of suggestions on changing this access point due to concerns about traffic congestion. We have discussed a number of alternative access points with the Council and our discussions and evidence gathering are ongoing. Our current analysis points to our current proposal as the most favourable access route, due to levelling issues on the site which limit our options.

Residents’ car parking will largely take the form of garages of a usable size and driveways. Two spaces per house will be provided and additional visitor spaces will also be available. Parking for the apartments will be located in parking courtyards.

Thank you for attending today’s event.

Your feedback is helpful as we continue to refine our design.

We will share with you our latest proposal before we submit our planning application to North Hertfordshire District Council. We are working towards submitting the application in December 2019.

Once our planning application has been submitted, it will be considered by the Planning Committee at the Council and representations can be made as part of the process.