Health & wellbeing at the heart of masterplan for Utopia City, Wrexham
Stephen George + Partners (SGP) has submitted a hybrid planning application on behalf of Net World Sports for the development of a new business park on 200 acres of land in Wrexham, North Wales. To be known as Utopia City, the proposed development will create a regionally significant employment hub and strengthen Wrexham Industrial Estate which lies just to the South of the site.
SGP’s comprehensive masterplan sets out a vision for a Grade-A development comprising 18 mixed-use units, including industrial and logistics, storage, manufacturing, F&B and leisure facilities, in an extensively landscaped setting. The hybrid application seeks detailed permission for nine high-quality units of a mix of sizes, with three outline parcels providing flexibility for future phases to be delivered.
The platinum thread to the masterplan design is focused on landscape design including green and blue infrastructure, with consideration given to integrating the proposed built form into the existing landscape framework which provides many ecological and landscape habitat assets to encourage local native species to remain present on-site. The masterplan retains existing mature trees and arranges waterbodies and planting as focal points within the development, anchoring built form in context. By providing links and strengthening connections, the landscape and aquatic corridors and pollinator paths can both contribute to a meaningful and usable experience for workers and users alike and improve biodiversity. Recreational walking routes and fitness trails together with informal relaxation spaces allow users close connections with nature.
Joseph Silva, Principal Architect, says: “We have recognised from some of our other schemes that green infrastructure can have a really positive impact on the health & wellbeing of users, as well as tenant attraction and retention rates. From the outset, we were keen to create a site that wasn’t just as dense as possible, but one that was very nicely landscaped and with a lot of green infrastructure in place. As a major sports equipment retailer, the amenity elements of the site were also extremely important to our client, in particular the wellness trail which forms a circuit within the site.”
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