Colchester Masterplans

Colchester Amphora Homes Limited

Colchester Amphora Homes Limited (CAHL) is a housing development company set up in 2018 to deliver new homes for people in Colchester. Building on the successful working relationship that Barefoot & Gilles had developed through projects such as the housing at Creffield Road and the commercial development at Sheepen Road, CAHL invited us to carry out some ‘high level’ initial appraisals of two sites which could be developed in tandem to transform the area immediately South of the main shopping street and create a vibrant new district for the town.

The Vineyard Gate site provides a very poor physical context for a number of significant historical features including a Roman wall, a Listed Group of buildings and with St Botolph’s Church and Priory nearby. Our study examined ways in which redevelopment could restore and enhance the setting of these features as well as creating pedestrian routes through the area. These would provide an attractive approach to the town centre for visitors arriving from the bus station and would link the area with the main retail offer.

Our study set out to demonstrate how the Vineyard Gate area and the Britannia Car Park site could interact. The car parking provided by the Britannia site is valuable in economic terms but is essentially a featureless area of hardstanding. Our proposal was to retain the same level of parking in a multi-storey structure and to introduce residential accommodation within the structure. As the two sites occupy a similar location comprehensive development would create a new residential district with attractive public open spaces, an improved context for historical assets and increased economic activity.

These studies are essentially initial sketches produced relatively quickly but nevertheless demonstrating to the client the range of possibilities that sites present. They can be seen as the starting point for more detailed analysis.