De Havilland House – New Build Development

Keegans were appointed as Employers Agent for Stevenage Borough Council on their North Road Development, De Hallivand House. The Development is for 21 new apartments for Private Sale and is a land led site.

The mix of units will be 12no. 1 Bed 2 Person; 2no. 2 Bed 3 Person; 7no. 2 Bed 4 Person.

The site contained an existing building which was a former residential home, with accommodation over two-and-a-half storeys and became vacant. The existing building has been demolished in its entirety prior to any construction works starting on site.

The building has been designed to break up the general massing to North Road and provide a variety of features such as bookend gables, projecting bays and dormer windows in a similar manner to the neighbouring residential properties either side.

The proposed building is arranged as a four storey block facing North Road, and three storey rear block forming a t-shaped plan. The main frontage features gabled ends to the north and south, and is also arranged with a slight crank to the plan at the entrance lobby to enable the north and south flanks to parallel the site boundaries.

There are two distinct communal garden areas to the east of the building, with a formal hard-landscaped garden incorporating a drying area to the north and an informal soft-planted garden to the south.

Water saving measures such as flow restrictors, aerated taps and dual flush toilets will be incorporated into the design. Large glazing to the internal stair lobby’s and corridors, and windows to common areas of the apartments reduce the reliance on artificial forms of lighting in the common areas of the building. The relatively simple plans of the dwellings may benefit from modern methods of construction or timber frame and this will be considered as part of the design development process once a Planning Approval has been achieved. Where possible, materials will be from environmentally sustainable sources. All materials will be recyclable wherever possible to address the whole life cycle of the building.

The development used a fabric first approach and incorporated high levels of thermal insulation to reduce energy requirements, and heating appliances have been selected to have low emission levels in accordance with the requirements of Part L of the Building Regulations and for the dwellings SAP calculations.

Since appointment as Employers Agent we have reviewed the project with the client. We have worked through and agreed the content of the Employers Requirement’s specifically with regards to the Private Sale Specification, as this isn’t something that the Council has undertaken previously in this way. We have also produced the Tender documentation, working in conjunction with the Councils procurement department and we have reviewed the Tender returns and been involved in the moderation process.

We worked very closely with our client as this scheme is very important to them and the councillors. We utilised a stop time motion camera to record the progress of the development on site which commence in early 2020 and was completed February 2022.