Liverpool practice scoops green space award

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Liverpool-based multi-disciplinary planning and design practice Cass Associates has scooped a Green Space award from Merseyside Civic Society for its work on the city’s Stonebridge Business Park project.

The £1.4m Stonebridge regeneration scheme was carried out over a three-year period by Cass Associates’ Landscape Architecture team on behalf of Liverpool Land Development Company. This important project along the A580 East Lancs Road approach stretch has seen 1.5km of road frontage transformed into a ribbon of high quality boulevard and the creation of a new community-based park in one of the city’s largest employment areas.

The Merseyside Civic Society accolade is the second award to have been won by Cass Associates this year. In February the practice was awarded the national title of Best Small Planning Consultancy of The Year by their industry body, the RTPI.

The recent Civic Society awards reward “outstanding projects in all fields of environmental design” and recognises “the important role played by high quality architecture, landscape and urban design and of enhancing the quality of the environment”.

The complex planning, design and implementation programme in this high profile location has formed the framework for 32,000 square metres of new employment- based development in this City Council Strategic Investment Area, as well as providing a local amenity that is now popular for walking, fishing and the general enjoyment of residents living or working nearby.

At the heart of the project has been a concern for protecting and enhancing the environment - and the work carried out by landscape and ecology experts at Cass Associates has addressed major water-related and ecological issues. The outcome has been the creation of an aesthetically attractive expanse of green space, populated with a series of open water courses and small lakes, successfully providing a natural habitat for wildlife such as fish and waterfowl.

Cass Associates’ ecological expertise ensured that the banks of the water courses were designed to be vole-friendly enabling Chester Zoo to implement a breeding programme for this endangered species – and during the swan nesting period local people set up a 24-hour watch system to protect cygnets that were living there.

In presenting Cass Associates’ Landscape Architect Kate da Cruz with the Green Space 2012 award, the Society’s Vice President and former Merseyside Partnership Chairman Rod Holmes acknowledged that the judging panel had concluded the Stonebridge project provided a landscape quality that was vital to the development as a whole, with habitat creation, sustainable drainage and open access features that would benefit the local community.

“We are delighted to have won this award for our work on what must be one of the most important regeneration projects in Liverpool, “ says Cass Associates’ Kate da Cruz. “This development has provided a high quality environment which has had a major impact on the economic, social and ecological performance of this highly visible approach into the city.”

Cass Associates’ recent projects include Liverpool’s new Active Adventures theme and activity park and ongoing work on Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service’s Toxteth Firefit scheme, a new £5.2m state-of-the-art fire-station with youth, community and sporting facilities.