Parkside Regeneration has appointed environment consultancy Arup to produce a sustainability strategy for the £100m first phase of regeneration at the former Parkside Colliery in Lancashire. 

The company says political, economic and societal factors are driving rapid change in expectations of what constitutes responsible and sustainable development.  Arup has been appointed to review its approach to all aspects of the scheme’s design and construction with the aim of ‘raising the bar’ for projects of this nature.

John Downes, chairman of Parkside Regeneration and group chief executive of Langtree said: “Parkside will become an exemplar of how to future-proof a large, complex project of this type. It is far from straight-forward but Arup lead the field in this area and, with their help, we will deliver a project that matches economic and social value with environmental performance”

Arup will begin work alongside the project’s planning consultants, engineers, architects, landscape designers, transport engineers and energy provider to assess current plans and identify areas for improvement.  Parkside Regeneration has already committed to achieving a BREEAM Excellent accreditation and the objective is now to ensure this environmentally focussed commitment is continued across all aspects of the scheme’s design, engineering, materials palette and construction.

Parkside secured consent in late autumn for 1m square feet of logistics space following a public inquiry.  The first phase of the project is scheduled to open in Q2 2024.  Work has already begun on the construction of the £38m Parkside Link Road by St Helens Council, which connects the site to Junction 22 of the M6.   The link road is scheduled for completion at the end of December 2023 and is being built by Balfour Beatty.