Design Statement Heron Brearley

Design statement in support of a planning application to incorporate additional office accommodation within the existing envelope together with addition of windows and additional car parking at Heron and Brearley Offices and Distribution Centre at Kewaigue, Douglas

Introduction

For the past 10 years or so general warehousing and distribution has been a key activity at Heron & Brearley’s Kewaigue site - PA 04/01947/R refers.

Warehousing operations were rationalised and working activities brought up to date via works carried out under PA 13/91119/B and an element of additional parking was created under PA 13/91120/B

As stated in these previous applications, despite the recession, Heron & Brearley Ltd’s business activities have continued to expand both in the Isle of Man and UK with the resultant increase in employment at all levels.

To respond to the ever increasing demands associated with corporate and health and safety legislation and to undertake the level of turnover that prevails, H&B are now in the position where they are looking to rationalise their in-house departments and generally update their office accommodation that was constructed over 25 years ago.

Whilst the changes required are predominantly an internal re-structuring of demountable partitions to re-define and create more open plan areas, to respond to the continued increase in staffing levels and accommodate the requirements of existing warehouse users, additional office space is needed.

Accordingly Heron & Brearley would like to secure planning permission for 291m2 of additional office space to be created within the existing envelope together with additional parking

Proposal

Whilst every effort has been being made to contain activities within the current office footprint, in rationalising department layouts and to accommodate continued growth H&B are seeking to introduce the following additional office accommodation:

• 31m2 via a mezzanine floor over the reception area where no external alterations are required
• 30m2 via the incorporation of new office accommodation at Ground Floor level within the far end of the warehouse to accommodate the relocation of Island Automatics where externally an additional window is required - see Warehouse Elevation B on drawing no 07/17/05
• 130m2 via the incorporation of office new accommodation created at ground floor level within the warehouse as an extension of existing office accommodation where externally additional windows are required. - see Warehouse Elevation A on drawing no 07/17/05

Other changes that require alterations to the external envelope are:

• Altering an existing window opening to create a fire exit at the far end of the accounts department at Ground floor level – see Office Accommodation elevation on drawing no 07/17/05
• Adding windows to the existing fire escape stairwell so that it becomes a general purpose staircase - see Warehouse Elevation B on drawing no 07/17/05
• extending the additional parking in a sympathetic manner to create 20 additional spaces. This equates to the mandatory requirement of 1 space per 15m2 of nett out of town office space as set out in Appendix 7 of the Strategic Plan to accommodate the 291m2 of additional office space to be created - see car park drawing no 07/17/06.
• To accommodate the new car parking two trees will need to be removed however these are on H&B side of the extensive boundary tree belts that already exist, and their removal will have no detrimental effect on the landscaping of the site as a whole.

For clarity we can confirm that no change to existing site lighting arrangements is currently envisaged or proposed as existing car parking lighting and lighting on the building is deemed sufficient

The re-planning of the office accommodation as a whole has been discussed with Douglas Corporation’s Building Control Department and no problems are envisaged in this respect.