A snapshot of the Project’s aims• An exemplar low carbon project with the highest standards of energyefficient design.• A CEEQUAL Excellent Award for Best Practice in its primary infrastructure.• 35 acres of new business park with BREEAM Excellent offices• 18 acres of new sustainable housing.• A new spine road & two new junctions enhancing vehicular accessto and from the Technology Park/Hospital.• The improved functioning of the A483 interchange.• Improved pedestrian access between the residential areas and the TechnologyPark/Hospital.• A new wildlife and recreation corridor to Wrexham Town Centre.• A Combined Cooling Heat & Power (CCHP) Plant.The Project’s achievements to dateThe project has been in development for a number of years.Work, to date, has concentrated on the following areas.• The acquisition of land from various third parties to enable the projectto proceed.• Facilitating the development of the residential community by Redrow Homes.• Working with the Welsh Assembly Government to understand how to developthe site in a low carbon manner.• The creation of a ‘Sustainability Masterplan’ for the site to ensure that the siteis comprehensively and sustainably developed.• Ensuring that the ecology of the site, ie the plants and animal life,is safeguarded before development commences.• Finding a temporary use for the site until work starts to ensure that the landdoes not become under-utilised and/or neglected.• The design of the primary infrastructure works.• Sourcing funding to implement the primary infrastructure works:the total estimated cost is approximately £11 million.Community & StakeholderInvolvementIn the early years of the project,before the residential areas were built,a number of meetings were held withlocal businesses to inform them aboutthe project and address any concernsand issues, specifically with respect tothe primary infrastructure works; at thattime, these were the responsibility ofRedrow Homes.Many thoughts, and some concerns,were expressed at these eventsparticularly about the impact ofconstruction works on the trafficmanagement system in and around thesite. These were noted and have formedpart of the Council’s considerationswhen designing the scheme.At this time, the Council also assigneda designated Business Advisor, MikeBather, to Wrexham Technology Park.Mike continues to act in this businesssupport role and can be contacted bylocal businesses.please call Mike on 01978 667306 ore-mail Mike.Bather@wrexham.gov.uk.The masterplanning work, as a majorpiece of technical study, engaged awide range of professional stakeholders,selected on the basis of their abilityto influence the Masterplan’s technicalconsiderations, eg. the DesignCommission, the Environment AgencyWales, the Welsh Assembly Governmentand the Countryside Council for Wales.Local Members were also involvedas well as local organisations suchas Wrexham Sustainability Forum,Yale College, Glyndwr University andthe Wrexham Maelor Hospital. SharpManufacturing at Llay also participated;Sharp is the largest assembler inEurope of photovoltaic panels (solarcell modules) and it was felt that theycould influence discussions on how todevelop the site with renewable energy.The Western Gateway Masterplan wascompleted in <strong>October</strong> 2007. It aimsto provide an illustrative direction tothe site’s future development and ispromotional in nature. If you wish toview a copy of the Masterplan, pleasedo not hesitate to contact us.The project is now enteringa new phase of communityand stakeholder involvementas work begins to move on site.The project team is keen to getthe local community involved,particularly local schools. If youhave any ideas as to how this couldbe done, please let us know.The recessionand its impacton the projectAs with many capital regenerationand construction projects across thecountry, the scheme has suffered withthe onset of the recession: funding hasbeen the main issue. Timescales havetherefore had to slip and the projecthas suffered some delay.New funding has now been sourcedfor the implementation of the highwayand pedestrian improvements toCroesnewydd Road Junction – at thelocation of the existing road bridge overthe old railway line - as the first phaseof the primary infrastructure works.23Western Gateway
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