The Leadworks

A scheme of over two hundred apartments designed for Bellway Homes on land surrounding a listed Lead Shot Tower, one of only four built in Britain.

The scheme is in the heart of the Boughton Canal Corridor Development Area and will be central to establishing the character and vitality of this mixed use quarter. A key challenge was to marry together a variety of scales of building and evolve an appropriate infrastructure to accommodate high density living, extensive office space and central leisure facilities.

The Leadworks was a very ‘impermeable’ area, a large site of 4.5acres not only without through connections but also with a relatively sparse level of human activity. The new uses together with development plans by the Bank of Scotland will greatly increase the vitality, dynamism and permeability of the whole neighbourhood.

How should its form reflect and develop this potential? How can existing qualities be protected and enhanced? How can new development mend some of the less than harmonious juxtapositions that exist now? The Urban Design Strategy which we prepared has attempted to recognise the strengths and weaknesses and suggest ways in which the form of the new development can bring shape to these aspirations.