Canals or cars - King Sturge is in the driving seat
17 October 2007
Whether it’s taking a “slow boat” to Stourport – or getting to grips with some of the fastest cars in the world – then specialists at property consultancy King Sturge are equally at home.
Gethin Chislett, King Sturge at Stourport Basin
For as lead monitor on a number of Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) approved schemes, staff in the firm’s Birmingham Office are keeping an eye on the progress of a number of “transportation” projects in the Midlands, including ones in Worcestershire, Shropshire and Warwickshire.
“Money generated via HLF is helping to protect some outstanding examples of Britain’s industrial heritage, as well as preserving products from a by-gone era of manufacturing and we are delighted to be associated with such projects,” said Andy Higgs, a partner at King Sturge, who heads up its Midlands-based building consultancy team.
He said that his team’s latest instruction was to monitor progress at the Heritage Motor Centre at Gaydon, near Warwick, which re-opens to the public this month following the awarding of a £997,681 grant to the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust (BMIHT) towards a major redevelopment of its museums.
“A £1.1 million Road Ahead project will include the construction of a new mezzanine floor within the museum’s exhibition hall and the creation of three new exhibitions,” added Mr Higgs, who said that King Sturge would be responsible for reporting on BMIHT’s compliance for the funding.
The new exhibition gallery will be opened on May 26 when many items from the museum’s archive and picture library collections will go on public display for the first time. BMIHT was originally founded in 1983 in order to safeguard a collection of historic vehicles and the Heritage Motor Centre itself opened ten years later as home to the world’s finest collection of historic British cars. The collection houses a total of 250 vehicles, including the first Land Rover, FAB1 from the Thunderbirds movie and the Jaguar 2000 Formula 1 car.
As well as the world of fast cars, King Sturge is also focusing on a slower mode of transport – that of the canal network – after having been instructed to monitor the £3 million redevelopment and restoration of the Stourport Canal Basin. The Stourport basin originally opened in the 1770s as part of James Brindley’s ambitious scheme to link the growing industrial towns of the Midlands and North with the ports of Hull, Liverpool, Bristol and London – and the Worcestershire town is the only one in Britain created solely as a result of the development of the canal network.
Work includes the restoration of historic warehouses and cottages including a number of listed buildings, improvements to locks and basin walls, landscaping and environmental enhancement.
Mr Higgs said that he was encouraged that the restoration work would not only protect an important part of the country’s built heritage but that the scheme would also provide public accessibility for all to the canal network’s environmental assets, as well as creating jobs and income for the area.
Another canal restoration project that King Sturge will be monitoring is that of a stretch of waterway in the Shropshire area, where a grant of £547,500 will restore the canal and footpath at Redwith, near Oswestry, also helping to create a nature reserve. Work on the scheme started in April and is part of a larger strategy to open up the Montgomery Canal along its entire length of 35 miles.
Mr Higgs added that much of his team’s advice focused on the growing needs of its clients, such as overseeing large projects where high levels of quality control were needed. “But we are also dedicated to finding solutions to complex technical problems and are usually involved with a project right from the outset, even down to identifying and acquiring development sites,” he commented.
The building consultancy team at King Sturge is one of the region’s leading providers of project management, architectural and building consultancy advice to a comprehensive range of major clients in the public, private and corporate sectors
