Cheshire West & Chester: Shot Tower

1. Executive Summary and Key Success Factors:

The 21-year journey of site development required long-term stewardship and perseverance by the planning team overcoming various complications (mainly related to the developer’s financial situation) across a series of planning applications (in 2001; 2004; 2007; 2008; 2012; 2016 and 2017); the challenges of establishing relationships and working with at least four different developers, heritage, conservation, ecological and archaeological constraints, and severe site contamination. The Shot Tower development presents strong lessons and examples of how the policies and officer-commitment of local planning authorities, exemplified through Cheshire West and Chester Council, can make the significant difference in bringing forward residential developments on UK brownfield land.

Planning

• Staying power – Cheshire West & Chester Planners worked with four different main developers (across several planning applications) to agree the site’s land-uses, keeping the focus on the needs of the community and the council’s vision for the regeneration of the canal frontage.
• Consistency & communication – A lead planning officer worked on this project from the creation of the first masterplan in 2001. This meant that there was a key point of contact and consistent input to communication with the developer team (especially the architects) to find solutions to each of the development challenges while keeping the vision on track. This helped ensure that the council were able to find solutions that suited the ambition of the developers and provided public benefit.
• Keeping the community informed – The Shot Tower is an important national landmark and resembles great value to the locals. The LPA kept active communication with the local community over the 21 years of development – sharing information and updates on the site’s future; keeping the site safe from contamination, deterioration and structural neglect; and providing guarantees about the preservation of the Shot Tower itself.
• Good governance - Beyond engaging with developers and the local community, the LPA collaborated with other stakeholders with different agendas, to take account of their respective interests, like Historic England – interested in preserving the listed Shot Tower building, the Cheshire Archaeology Planning Advisory Service – interested in the Roman archaeological remains and the Canal and River trust and Welsh Water – interested in protecting the Shropshire Union canal.

Key Planning Tools

• A development framework of the regeneration of the Shropshire Union canal frontage, led by the Local Planning Authority.
• The site was originally designated within the North East Urban Action Area, of the Chester District Local Plan (CDLP), which sought a mixed-use regeneration scheme for the environmental, social and economic benefit of the City (Policy URBREN1).
• The application formed part of a larger area allocated for mixed-use development under policies HO2, EC2 and EC3 in the Local Plan, including residential units (both open market and affordable dwellings), employment, leisure, food/drink, cultural and tourism uses. These policies were part of the Chester City Council’s Local Plan strategy to meet its housing supply targets on previously-developed land, to regenerate the land and save the development of greenfield (and also Green Belt) land.
• A masterplan of the 13 blocks, including the Shot Tower Block, led by the 2001 developer, flexibility to allow for change of circumstances.
• A site plan for the Shot Tower block pat of the original site, led by the 2004 developer and ultimately in a different format by the 2017 developer, to update the Shot Tower element of the masterplan.

Site Identification

• In the first masterplan from 2001, the Shot Tower block (1 of 13 blocks) was identified as a mixed-use site with eight work/live units, alongside offices, restaurant/café bar uses and the preserved Shot Tower Grade II* listed building and public open spaces.
• As it remained undeveloped, subsequent applications, in particular in 2004 and 2012 resulted in increasing amounts of the demolition of the newer buildings at the site as well as increasing amounts of residential units being permitted.
• The 2004 and 2012 permissions were not built out, with a new developer coming in 2017, proposing instead 72 residential apartments with no affordable housing, and that was approved in 2017 and is now built out.

Site Viability

• High development costs, due to site conservation and ground contamination constraints, prevented two development attempts on the site in 2008 and 2012.
• The 2017 proposal was also at risk of discontinuing due to heavy-metal contamination from the previous leadworks function which presented a potential public safety issue. The LPA, the developer and the architects worked together and devised a ‘capping’ strategy of locking the contaminants in the ground without any excavation and adding an insulation layer which ensured the safety of local residents around the site, the future residents of the development, the workers onsite and the whole community.
• The 2017 development faced another risk of discontinuing due to the high cost (on developer) of specific construction techniques, such as preventing excavation to avoid damage of Roman archaeological remains; implementing pile foundations to fit the no excavation site policy; and the site capping to keep the site safe for development, beside the cost of specialised restoration methods of the Grade II* listed Shot Tower Building. This was overcome by having no affordable housing, thus, allowing the developer to generate more revenue.

Leadership & Governance

• Planning officers took the lead in liaising with the architect (through the developer) to make sure that the council’s regeneration ambitions and priorities were at the forefront of the developer’s minds. This included the importance of the site heritage and preserving the Grade II* listed Shot Tower in the design. This required perseverance to ensure that these key regeneration ambitions were understood by different developers (and their architects) as they changed many times over 20 years.

Key Lessons

• Early direct communication with stakeholders saves times and minimises drastic changes in planning or development, especially in complex developments like the Shot Tower site, with many stakeholders, related to the conservation (Grade II* listed monument), archaeology (Roman remains), water frontage (Shropshire Union canal). The list of all stakeholders is in the next section.
• Rely on expertise (e.g. specialists to propose methods of fighting the heavy metal contamination onsite) but keep your involvement; you remain the voice of the local community, their interests and needs (e.g. benefiting from the central site location for a public use). The LPA is the decision-maker and takes account of all interests (including balancing of competing interests).
• Expect the worse – although contamination from previous site functionality (as leadwork site) was anticipated, the actual situation on the ground can often be more difficult or dangerous than expected. For this site the LPA had to consider innovative contextual solutions, beyond the standardised solutions (e.g. no excavation, capping the site and deploying pile foundation). Solutions need to be negotiated on a site-specific basis
• Brownfield sites are complex investments for developers.  Hence, always be prepared with a backup plan if development stopped temporarily or permanently for major problems (e.g. developer going into administration).
• Make sure you are prepared to protect the ‘green’ in your brown field site. Peregrine Falcons were discovered nesting in the Shot Tower roof which required special nests to be deployed onsite during the development. Be prepared for unexpected challenges beyond planning. “Falcons are a protected bird, and we were not allowed to start construction during their nesting season” (CEO of Blue Dog Property – the Developer).  
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• Site Information, Development Timeline and Key Stakeholders

• The Site

  Local Planning Authority	Cheshire West and Chester
  Land ownership	Calder industrial materials Ltd
  Current land ownership	Shot Tower Chester Ltd
  Type of location	Urban heritage site with a Grade II* listed Shot Tower, within a larger brownfield site. Bound by a car park and Chester Railway Station to the north, Shropshire Union canal to the south, another car park to the east and a residential block to the west.
  Previous uses	Leadworks site to produce shot balls, hence, the sever metal contamination
  Size of site	0.35 ha as the shot tower residential block of the larger 2 ha site
  Current stage of planning	The development is now complete.
  Current site status	Design and construction of all phases of the residential units are complete. Units are sold with a few still available in the market.
  LRF Funding Received	N/A
  Main developer(s)	White Croft Ltd and Blue Dog Property Group (since 2017)

Key dates in Planning History:

Key Stakeholders

1. Planning strategy and site allocation

The Initial Masterplan – Site regeneration

Figure 3: Site Masterplan – 13 blocks (A-M) including the Shot Tower

Planning for the future of this site began in 2000 after Calder industrial materials Ltd (who operated leadworks on-site) moved out and left a 2ha brownfield land plot. The plot is, adjacent to the train station and in the heart of Chester where limited land is available. The site’s central location and frontage to the Shropshire Union canal, made it a central part of the council’s prime vision for the regeneration of the canal frontage - serving the local community through diverse residential, commercial and cultural uses, while preserving the heritage aspects and conservation of the Shot Tower.

The first major task for the Local Planning Authority (LPA) was getting the first developer to set out an acceptable masterplan (figure 3) for the physical development of the site as a whole and its land-uses to reach the planning permission in application 01/01268/FUL. This included creating 225 residential units with ground-floor offices, cafes and restaurants; 8 live/work units in the Shot Tower block; and associated new accesses, roads, parking and open spaces. The LPA also agreed on scheduling the development over two phases, where the Shot Tower block was part of phase 2, after the housing developer clarified that they did not want to develop out the more complicated and risky part of the masterplan. This was part of the LPA’s strategy of providing extra protection to the Shot Tower (as a Grade II* monument site) and its immediate context during construction, especially as the LPA agreed with the developer to have a financial bond to enable the Council to complete those works if the 3rd party developer subsequently failed to do it.

Development Interruption – Unknown Site Future

Financial difficulties faced by the first, and subsequent developers, led to phase 2 (which included the Shot Tower Block) being undeveloped. This left the planners with a challenge – finding another developer (not actively searching but open to discussions and negotiations with other prospective developers), while ensuring that the site was left in a clean, safe condition and that the grade II listed Shot Tower was protected from deterioration (the departing developer provided a physical barrier between the undeveloped shot tower block and the surrounding occupied residential blocks). The LPA also kept the local community aware of the situation, especially explaining the measures deployed to protect the public and preserve the Shot Tower monument from deterioration.

Development Attempts – Planning Applications with no Built Output

Between 2004 and 2012 two main successful planning applications were made by two subsequent developers to take forward the Shot Tower block. Both developers stepped away due to financial limitations. The first developer (of 2004) never commenced on-site construction, whereas the other developer (of 2012) stopped working after opening up the site and carrying out some agreed-on demolitions of old roofs of ancillary buildings. The second developer went into administration. This required significant intervention from the LPA to liaise with the bank (charged with dealing with the administration) to implement some measures to protect the Shot Tower monument from deterioration from being exposed to adverse weather conditions, especially as the developer already removed certain roofs and made openings in the existing buildings onsite. The success of these protection measures guaranteed the site’s conservation, while the secured Shot Tower waited for the next development plan to come forward.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel – New master plan for the Shot Tower

After a period of uncertainty, two developers (White Croft Ltd and Blue Dog Property Group) joined forces, seeing a business opportunity that suited them while preserving the site’s heritage value and providing a public benefit for the people of Chester. They proposed a new site plan (figure 2), submitted within the planning application (17/04361/FUL), to create 72 Class C3 residential apartments and town houses, a heritage interpretation centre (within the Shot Tower), alongside associated car parking, public art and substation. The site plan was divided into block A, encompassing 45 residential units; block B, encompassing 27 residential units.

The LPA played a significant part, through the lead planning officer, working with the architect to ensure that the design concept, technical drawings and construction materials (and other architectural elements) were primarily driven by the site heritage. Working with the lead architect during the design and construction stages, the lead planning officer was able to ensure that the council’s wider regeneration and heritage interests were delivered by conserving the Shot Tower, and also that practical design elements were achieved - keeping the monument’s higher dominance relative to other buildings (through proportions, skyline and porosity); and guaranteeing visual connections towards the monument from different locations around the site. Moreover, the CEO of Blue Dog Property Group (developer) described the planning officer’s persistence to safeguarding the original industrial essence of the site, inherited from the previous leadworks function. “He [the planning officer] was keen to preserve what he called the industrial aesthetic…not to develop urban apartments”. This was expressed in the façade and landscape materials listed in the planning application (17/04361/FUL) with detailed specifications, for instance, Copper Oxide Coloured Metal Roof and wall Cladding, and Grey Framed Windows. Accordingly, the concept of heritage conservation was not shallowly limited to protecting the Shot Tower monument but also protecting the site’s authentic atmosphere.

Beyond the role of the lead planning officer, the LPA deployed further expertise, through conservation, environmental health and ecology officers, to pursue their role of studying (1) the Design Statement Report; (2) the Environmental Impact Statement; (3) the Shot Tower conditions survey; (4) the structure report and (5) the Ecology Statement, submitted by the developer in the planning application. In the meantime, the lead planning officer performed another role of exchanging communications with major stakeholders to provide their comments on the development, such Welsh Water, Canal River Trust, Environment Agency, Historic England, whose roles were also added in the planning conditions to be consulted prior to any onsite construction or demolition.

Alongside their engagement with the developer, the architect and various stakeholders, the LPA had a parallel significant role to open a communication channel, through meetings and discussions, with the public, especially the local community who had concerns about heritage conservation. In response, to address the heritage concerns, the LPA explained how the phased development approach and careful approach to preserving the Shot Tower as a heritage asset and the preservation of the ‘essence’ of the site, and this ultimately helped change public opinion and build confidence in and get support for the final designs.  The concerns about urban intensification were balanced against the challenges of having an undeveloped site in the centre of Chester and the opportunity being presented to bring an important monument back to life for social gain.

2. Planning Decision Process

Since the Shot Tower site has taken over 20 years, the planning decision process has significantly evolved across time and across multiple developers.

Achieving planning balance

In the original 2001 masterplan, the whole site including the shot tower block comprised mixed uses of commercial, cultural and residential units. The LPA, evaluating local needs, negotiated a Section 106 agreement with the developer to accommodate 46 affordable units comprising a mix of shared ownership, rental and low-cost affordable dwellings. Nevertheless, when the Shot Tower block was left undeveloped and went through a change of developer, the new site plan (proposed by the new developers either in 2008 or 2012) was accepted by the LPA to include only residential units (without mixed-uses or work/live units). The LPA still negotiated with the developers to include 25 units affordable housing units as a requirement for the Shot Tower site, and this was included in both planning applications of 2004 (with variations up to 2008) and 2012, both were approved but not executed.

Considering the aforementioned residential use of the Shot Tower site with inclusion of affordable housing, it was a challenge for the earlier developers (of 2004 or 2012) to generate the requisite revenues from the development. Accordingly, both development attempts were not executed. At that point, the LPA once again intervened by agreeing to renegotiate the land-uses with the new 2017 developer – White Croft Ltd and Blue Dog Property Group, upon acknowledging the site challenges and the subsequent difficulty in turning the site into a viable development proposition. As the developer demonstrated through the submission of a viability appraisal that the site could not be viably developed if it included any affordable housing, a compromise was made to permit the scheme without affordable housing. The LPA negotiated an agreement with the developer to implement a large central public courtyard accessible to non-residents, (figure 5); and implementation of a public access corridor that running through the development connecting it to the train station (northern side). Moreover, given the historic significance of the site and the listed building, the council negotiated with the developer to ensure that the new site plan of the Shot Tower block provides a heritage centre that is open to the public. Finally, The LPA also agreed with Waitrose, developing a site across the canal from the Shot Tower development, that they would provide and pay for the construction of a public bridge that connects the site with the other side of the Shropshire Union canal (figure 4) where the supermarket is located.

3. Key site challenges

“This site had so many challenges, outside the planning side” (The CEO of Blue Dog Property - Developer)

Apart from the long development timeline (20 years), and the change of developers (4 times), of masterplans and land-uses, there are 4 four main challenges that this development had to meet and overcome to achieve success. The challenges relate to (1) contamination; (2) conservation and heritage constraints; (3) archaeological constraints; and (4) ecology.

Contamination

As a former leadworks site, contamination was the most crucial challenge that faced the Shot Tower development. The LPA played a fundamental role in protecting local residents around the site, the future residents of the development, and the workers onsite and the whole community. Right from the initial discussions about the site’s future, the planning and environmental health officers working together anticipated the contamination risk. For example, the geotechnical and environmental assessment, prepared by Sutcliff and submitted by the developer (white Croft) in the 2017 planning application, revealed heavy metals and asbestos contamination, which was expected from the earliest stages, given the previous use of the site – leadworks. To respond to that, the LPA liaised with the architect/contractor to negotiate and agree on specific measures to be implemented during development. The EA pushed for the safest solution (although being more expensive for the developer) which is site capping (i.e. lock down contaminants underneath the site surface and isolate them from the development) and minimise excavations. They also played a parallel role of reassuring the locals that the deployed measures guarantee the protection of our community.

Conservation

With the Grade II* listed Shot Tower monument as the jewel of the site, conservation issues were always anticipated as a challenge, i.e. how to regenerate the Shropshire Union canal frontage while preserving what is onsite. Conservation and environmental officers played a key role analysing Design Reports and Environmental Impact Statements which were provided by the developer within every planning application.

The LPA played another significant role in preserving the Grade II* listed Shot Tower monument by ensuring that this was a priority in every proposed site plan of the Shot Tower block (in each of the 4 planning applications received between 2001-2017) by maintaining a large enough construction-free buffer (public space) around the monument. Moreover, the LA only granted permission (for each of the applications) conditional to specific details and specifications - for instance, demolition of any existing structure onsite required a separate written consent from English Heritage integrated as a planning condition.

Archaeology

The Shot Tower block site was originally a Roman site with archaeological remains needing to be preserved beneath the land surface. The LPA liaised with the Cheshire Archaeology Planning Advisory Service (a shared service between CWAC and Cheshire East Councils), studying the archaeological report submitted by the developer and ensuring restricted excavation in certain areas. Nevertheless, with the proposed capping solution (to overcome heavy metal contamination – discussed above) new construction required implementing pile foundations that penetrated deep into the site. Accordingly, the lead planning officer had to liaise with the archaeological officers and the developer team (architect and structural engineers), to ensure that the piles’ geographic locations avoided areas of underground Roman archaeological remains.

Ecology

The last challenge to development on the Shot Tower site was related to ecology which, as described by the developer, was completely unpredictable: “Who would have thought that ecology would be an issue on brownfield land site in the centre of a city with no greenery whatsoever”. In fact, it turned out that Peregrine Falcons, nationally protected birds, used the rooftop of the Shot tower monument to build their nests and lay eggs in the nesting season. Accordingly, the LPA played one last role in this project to coordinate with the developer certain measures that guaranteed the non-disturbance of this ecosystem. For that, the LPA also liaised with the developer who imported a special nest from Germany (with extra cost of GBP 15,000 on the project), to be used by the falcons as a substitute for previous damaged nests. The LPA also scheduled a construction break that aligns with the nesting season when falcons use the rooftop.

4. LPA skills and resources

The Planning Team at Cheshire West and Chester Council has been leading the process of bringing the Shot Tower site forward, as illustrated through the aforementioned planning strategy and the continuous evolving planning decisions, mainly undertaken over three main phases of planning applications (2001, 2008 and 2012) and reaching the fourth application which was permitted in 2017. During these development periods, making use of multiple skills and resources from different departments, as well as the dedication of officers (including through unpaid hours) have been fundamental for the LPAs success.

Continuity

A major success factor was the continuity of having the same planning officer involved from the first masterplan (of 2001), and they became the lead planning officer for the later planning application (of 2017) under which the site was finally developed. This meant being able to attain and keep accumulated layers of knowledge about this site’s potential and challenges, enabling the LPA to facilitate the development process and ensuring that its key regeneration priorities, the full conservation of the monument and public protection from contamination remained a constant consideration. This is signified in the most recent developer’s statement “By the time we got involved, they were really keen to make life as easy as possible for us”.

Perseverance, direct communication, coordination and minimising bureaucracy

Establishing a system of direct (and open) communication channels with different stakeholders is key to successfully delivering a development like this. For this development the LPA ‘kept lines of communication open’ with various developers. The communications approach had to recognize not only the different stakeholders, but also the multi-layered complexities of a site like the Shot Tower site. This included Historic England – to discuss the Shot Tower’s conservation requirements, the Cheshire Archaeology Planning Advisory Service – to discuss the protection of any Roman archaeological remains and the Canal and River trust – to discuss the measure of protecting the Shropshire Union canal, alongside the prime communication channel with the two joined-forces developers and their team (of architects, contractors and other specialists), to bring all of the communications together to meet all of the challenges and opportunities that the site presented. There was another communication channel with the local community to provide updates on the development stage, the heritage conservation and measures of protecting the community from contamination. This was mainly done through keeping the local ward Councillors aware of the building preservation measures put in place and alternative proposals being considered.

Diversified Skills to Solve Problems

To address the Shot Tower’s many layers of complexity, the LPA had to have access to a diverse pool of expertise, often used to anticipate certain challenges (e.g. expected contamination from previous leadworks function), analyse the current situation (e.g. the sudden termination of the older masterplan development), study information provided by the developer’s team (e.g. Design Reports or the Shot Tower condition survey) then agree with the developer on implemented solutions (e.g. stopping construction works during falcons nesting season). These included the planning officers, the environmental health officers, the conservation officers, and ecology officers with an open-door approach to considering changes in market conditions and alternative design solutions (e.g. environmental health support for on-site sterilisation of contaminated ground and ecological support on how to get and install a falcon nest).

5. Conclusion

This case study portrays an example of how challenging the facilitation of development could become on brownfield sites, thus, requiring the significant roles of LPA to be effective in enabling bringing forward and nurturing  potential development proposals by providing a clear planning policy position and  LPA design/land use preferences to provide a significant degree of certainty and thereby lower financial risks (which are heightened by the greater complexities and levels of uncertainty on brownfield sites) for prospective developers; and continued support throughout the development process from not only the LPA, but also the other relevant expertise available within the Council. Challenges could be related to the site itself (e.g. contamination, archaeology, ecology) or related to the developer (e.g. financial constraints and high cost of development), but there is an on-going challenge resembled in the dichotomy between the continuous urge to regenerate certain areas and the need of preserving our heritage and the historic meanings embedded in brownfield sites. At that point the LPA act as a facilitator for development initiatives through negotiations to provide as much of the community’s preferred development forms and uses as possible (and any variation in them over time), and preserving the heritage value of the site, whilst balancing these against the effects of variations in development market conditions on the viability of particular development schemes and the community’s desire to regenerate the site.

6. Key Links

Planning applications:

https://pa.cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk/online-applications/simpleSearchResults.do?action=firstPage