The Elms, Church Road, Shareshill, Staffordshire...

When appraising the development of the Elms Public House site, we identified that the site was central to the older established buildings of Shareshill. A key element of the village was the Public House itself. The public house was analysed in respect of its size in relationship to the required car parking, this established the land left available for residential development which determined the bespoke nature of the scheme.

The scheme for 14 dwellings evolved from a planning and design framework, in compliance with national planning advice in the form of PPG1 Annexe A (now PPS1 33-39), PPG3 and the DETR document ‘By Design’.

 

A key objective set for the project was to create a development that would respond to the existing context of buildings, streets and spaces ensuring that the new proposal related positively to the surroundings, respecting building lines, promoting an active street frontage as a means of enclosing the public realm, and differentiating between private and public spaces.

 

The aim was to achieve character in both townscape and landscape in order to create local distinctiveness. A landscape scheme together with boundary details were submitted with the full planning application together with a schedule of the materials to be used.

 

It was recognised that the development should positively contribute towards reducing the risk of fear of crime and to ensure that the development was designed to accommodate disabled people.

 

It was recognised that standard house types would not be appropriate and a variety of new designs were prepared for buildings in terms of their scale and massing to reflect the surroundings with roofscape that respects the pitches and traditional spans which is one of the most important characteristics of the locality.

 

The scheme is therefore the result of an urban design analysis of the locality. Following this assessment careful consideration was given to creating an urban design concept for the site which reflects the character of the village of Shareshill while maximizing the use of previously undeveloped land and incorporating new design ideas to create a vibrant mixed community with accommodation that has proved attractive to families, trade down and single people.