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Design | Management | Construction
________________________________________________________________________________________________ Date 1st December 2020 ________________________________________________________________________________________________
IFGL have earlier this year completed the addition of Friends Provident International (FPIL) to their group, an acquisition that includes the FPIL building and site on Arbory Road in Castletown (also known as Royal Court).
IFGL as building owners are already progressing with making some improvements to the existing building which has suffered from a lack of maintenance, overheating and other issues associated mainly with aging windows and services. The intention is to provide additional accommodation for a planned increase in employment and reorganisation of existing resources whilst improving the working environment throughout the building, effectively doubling the number of staff in the building from its current occupation.
While most of the changes to the building are general repairs and do not require planning permission, there are some planning relevant modifications which are described further under Item 2 below.
To accommodate this increase in occupancy, additional carparking spaces will be required – a separate planning submission will be made in due course for these and the associated re-landscaping works which will include bin storage and new cycle storage.
THE SITE
The site is located on Arbory Road, it neighbours The Buchan School to the East and the residential development of Vaarney Yiarg to the north. The residential buildings are visually mostly separated from the building and carparking areas by walls and fences of varying height and by a dense area of planting which includes mature trees and smaller trees and shrubs planted over the past 25 years.
The existing building on the site was built in 1990 and is used for single-occupancy commercial office space with fenced plant compound towards the northern end and some smaller out buildings again to the north used for mechanical ventilation plant, diesel tank and general storage.
The overall site area is approx. 4 acres, with ‘tarmacked’ access roads and carparking covering approximately 30 percent of it.
The site is not located within a conservation area and there are no registered buildings on the site. There is no flood risk to the site indicated on the MUA maps. It should be noted that none of the trees on site are protected, but trees on the adjacent Buchan School site are.
There have been a number of planning applications for the site, but nothing of any relevance in the past 20 years, only minor applications for plant enclosures or similar. Some context images are included below.
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View of Main Entrance View towards Arbory Road View from back courtyard View towards Vaarney Yiarg View Along Arbory Road View towards the building View of Carpark towards East View of carpark towards North
The client owns the site indicated by a red line and the densely planted curtilage which can not be developed or built on is bordered in blue. A site plan (2011-SK-001) is attached for reference and below shows a red line site drawing as well as an aerial photograph of the site
Site Plan with red line
Aerial Photograph of the Site
IFGL intend to refurbish the building generally, both internally and externally, and are replacing the majority of the MEP services to provide a suitable environment for the increased staff and to improve access for all users. Most of the repairs and improvements are not planning relevant, two of them should however be noted:
Both new structures will be predominantly glazed with grey aluminium framing supported by light weight steel frame structures, again painted grey, which we feel complement the existing building. The below diagram shows the location of the replacement conservatory and the proposed extension in red, the existing building in grey.
The building will also receive minor repairs to roof areas including new lead flashings and coping capping, new rainwater goods, minor repairs and redecoration to external walls and windows.
No changes are proposed to the eaves or overall building height.
The existing timber windows and door systems will in due course be replaced with grey coloured more thermally efficient aluminium framed systems in a phased process, commencing with those adjacent to the main circulation areas.
A new door to the courtyard areas is also proposed and will match the grey aluminium framed doors proposed for the main entrances described above.
Overall, the proposed interventions are expected to improve the building appearance and any replacement elements will be of high quality and contemporary appearance.
The applicant’s agent has undertaken pre-application consultation with the planning officer and information for both the building improvements and the carpark areas were submitted in October 2020. The feedback on the building improvements were generally supportive for the building modifications, no major concerns were raised and further details has been added for the purpose of this application
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