Wrexham Council shows how development and improvement works on the Plas Madoc housing estate will look with computer generated regeneration video
Council tenants in North Wales are now able view a computer generated ‘flythrough’ video to show how their estate could look after improvement work has been carried out.
The Plas Madoc housing estate, near Wrexham, is due to receive extensive improvements, starting in 2017. The work is part of Wrexham Council’s project to ensure all its housing properties achieve the Welsh Government’s Welsh Housing Quality Standard by 2020.
Regeneration and improvement
Improvement work on the estate will include installing External Wall Insulation on the outside walls and elevations of around 400 steel-framed ‘Cubbitt’ properties houses on the estate. This is designed to improve insulation on the properties, making them more efficient to heat, as well as improve their external appearance.
Other potential improvements are also being proposed to the environment and landscape of the estate. These could include:
- Redesigning public spaces
- Opportunity for unpopular properties to be redesigned
- Small gardens to be redesigned to offer better space where possible
- Poor landscaping to be redesigned
- Formalised parking areas to be provided
- Public spaces can be redesigned
- Opportunity for new build housing to be provided
Computer generated regeneration
The video has been produced by a partnership between Wrexham Council’s Housing & Economy Department and Glyndwr University. Architectural Design Technology students, Thom Gordon, Darren Pleavin and Ben Turner created the video as well as a large table top wooden model of the estate to help tenants visualize the potential improvement work.
The partnership won the award for ‘Best Practice in Tenant Engagement’ at the Welsh Tenants Awards, held in Llandrindod Wells, last year.
Sponsorship for the project was provided by Wrexham Council’s contractors’ Top Notch and Novus Property Solutions and Travis Perkins.
New kitchens and bathrooms have already been installed in properties on the estate as part of the improvement works.
The first steps of the project are due to take place in the next few months when the External Wall Insulation programme is due to begin. Twenty-two of the estate’s most unpopular, hard to let properties are also due to be demolished in early 2017.
Video gives tenants chance to see improvements
Lead Member for Housing, Councillor Ian Roberts, said: “The upcoming improvement work planned for Plas Madoc has given us the opportunity to look at the estate as a whole and see where we can make changes which will benefit the environment and landscape of the area as well as the properties themselves. It is important that we are able to engage tenants with the project and gather feedback as we progress.
“The video that has been produced is allowing tenants to see these improvements in a more realistic and accessible way than has ever been possible before. It’s taking us another step forward into making the ambitious project a reality and I think it will show that there is a bright future ahead for the tenants of this estate.
“The work the students have done has been invaluable to us and I’d like to thank them for producing something so impressive.”
Wrexham Council are investing £54m in housing improvement work across the County Borough in 2016/17. This includes a £7.5m Major Repairs Allowance Grant from the Welsh Assembly, to support the achievement of the Welsh Housing Quality Standard.
The improvements include offering new kitchens and bathrooms to all properties, where required to meet the new standard. Other internal and external improvements are also being carried out where required, including electrical rewires, new central heating systems and re-roofing.
For more information visit the Plas Madoc website.
Wrexham County Borough Council
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