Queen Eleanor Court, Amesbury

Paul Basham Associates continue to assist McCarthy & Stone on this Retirement Living and retail/convenience store scheme in Salisbury Street, Amesbury having been involved from inception through to Section 278 approval, construction and first resident occupation. The development is now fully occupied, and we visit regularly to talk to residents and staff as part of our ongoing Travel Plan Coordination works.

Paul Basham Associates were initially instructed to carry out the works to assist with the submission of the planning application to develop the former national cooperative store into 33 Retirement Living apartments and associated retail space. Having worked on the scheme from the outset, we were then asked to undertake the S278 works required for the detailed access and loading bay design, before also assisting with discharging the condition to implement the 3 Year Travel Plan as part of our dedicated Travel Plan Coordination service.

As well as providing a detailed Transport Statement to support the planning application, we liaised closely with the project team and our contacts at Wiltshire Council throughout. Once the application was approved, we then assisted in discharging a number of conditions relating to the production of a Travel Plan and a Car Park Management Plan.

During the S278 stage, our Technical Team worked on the access design and delivery layby. Liaising closely with our engineering colleagues at Wiltshire Council, this enabled the design to be signed off and has since been built out to match our original specification.

Upon completion, we were appointed as Travel Plan Coordinators to satisfy the planning condition previously stated. Within our role, we visit the site on an annual basis and take this opportunity to talk to residents, gather their opinions, distribute Travel Information Packs and fill out Travel Surveys. We then summarise our findings to Wiltshire Council on an annual basis. It is this hands on approach which has seen such positive response rates of 42% in the first two years of the TPC works.

Being present throughout the application process allowed us to build up an excellent knowledge of the scheme and the surrounding area of Amesbury. This approach has therefore enabled us to firstly assist the project team in achieving planning consent, secondly achieve expedient technical approval from Wiltshire Council for the off-site highway works and finally receive positive feedback and sign off on the first two years of the Travel Plan Coordination works. It has also allowed us to provide residents with excellent sustainable transport information, as well as offering genuinely suitable alternative transport methods to the car (such as walking, public transport and car sharing). We look forward to entering the third year of the TPC works, and continuing to work closely with the staff and residents on site and we hope to see a further increase to the 11% reduction in single occupancy vehicle trips from the first year to second years.