A Sustainable Alternative

This proposal presents a sustainable and more economical alternative, retaining the huts. We provide a summary below.

• Full illustrated PDF format
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• Card models of the Army and Speirs huts, and models of the new builds

Summary

The old Grammar School and former Community Centre at 5, Palace Street East, Berwick-upon-Tweed, is being developed by the Berwick Youth Project. The main Georgian building will be refurbished and converted into eight flats for supported accommodation, plus a caretaker’s flat.

The yard at the back contains two curtilage-listed structures over a hundred years old: a Great War army hut, brought from the Blyth army camp in 1920, and a rare Speirs prefabricated classroom from 1908. The BYP’s intention is to demolish these and replace them with a large garage block, 21 feet high by 72 feet long, along with a new house to help fund the garage block.

The community view in neighbouring streets is that this part of the development is inappropriate and will harm the conservation area and the views from the Town Walls, also reducing amenity for properties in Ness Street and The Avenue by proximity to such large structures. Saddest of all, heritage structures that contribute to the Grammar School’s history and the openness of this area will be lost.

This document argues that a better solution for the community, for BYP and for Berwick is to refurbish and reuse the historic structures, supplementing them with cheap and simple secure storage. It will remove the need to build a new house, which is not guaranteed to fund the proposed garage block, and ensure these benefits:

1. lower costs and risk for BYP;
2. provision of interesting buildings that BYP clients can enjoy and take pride in;
3. quicker consolidation of BYP’s operations on the site, reducing off-site rent payments;
4. retention of heritage assets in the form of Grade II* curtilage-listed huts, which are unique in Berwick and can become part of Heritage Open Days;
5. ability to attract funding through heritage grants;
6. a much smaller environment impact, including carbon emissions, landfill, development noise over a protracted period, and less disturbance of wildlife;
7. continued enjoyment of this beautiful and open area of Berwick for residents and visitors alike, which is so important for our mental health;
8. keeping the site intact – a greater area could be given over to gardening and green space, which could be very beneficial for BYP’s clients.

We estimate the cost of providing facilities required by BYP to be in the order of £120,000 + VAT – a fraction of the current plan’s cost – and we outline how the community can help.