West Town Primary School
Back to Projects- New premises for an expanding primary school.
- Brownfield site with retained TPO trees
- Incorporating a mature landscape and locally listed building
West Town Primary in Peterborough needed a new home so it could expand and a site was acquired for the school in the grounds of the former Peterborough Hospital. WWA worked with Frank Shaw Architects and Kier to transform the site of the demolished hospital into the school.
As a brownfield site previously used as a hospital there were issues:
- Areas of contaminated ground which required remediation
- Mature TPO trees to be retained
- Demolition activity prior to the works had disrupted some trees
- Retention of an existing locally listed building as a new school / community facility
We liaised with the Peterborough City tree officer to agree on tree retentions and removals as well as the remediation strategy around the trees. We were not able to remove soil from within the root protection areas, so a scheme was developed to use artificial grass and a membrane under the mature trees as a means of preventing contact with the soil – this overcame the contamination issue and provided the school with a large all-weather play area.
New play spaces, early years area and sports courts were carefully planned around the existing trees.
The school boundary ran along a major route into the city centre. WWA drew up plans to enhance the existing planting in addition to a management plan for the existing hedgerow and trees along the boundary to sustain the important landscape buffer with the road.
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