Finding space for new business premises and thriving business hubs in busy city centres can often be a challenge. However, when you consider the hundreds of railway arches there are across cities like London, Manchester, Newcastle and Leeds, the scope for the creation of thriving business environments, such as new restaurants, retail properties, and light industrial workspace, is vast. Stuart Byles, director at Pexhurst explains why the opportunity is so significant and how best to approach refurbishment projects of this nature.
This opportunity is especially pertinent given the investment by The Arch Company, the UK’s largest provider of properties for small and medium businesses, via their Project 1000 programme and with our support. This scheme involves a £200 million investment to bring at least one thousand arches and rental spaces into use by 2030.
Once finished, they will become new spaces in which businesses can thrive, bringing jobs to the local community and utilising sustainable processes to refresh and revitalise these unique environments.
Ever since the arches were first constructed, they have been home to an array of small businesses. However, over time and for different reasons, some have gone through a period of neglect. Repurposing these spaces to encourage small businesses to return once again can be of significant benefit to the local communities where they are located.
Renovating and refurbishing railway arches presents unique challenges
Unlike traditional property refurbishments, railway arch refurbishments by their nature take place in busy environments with the railway operating overhead and often-busy roads and pavements underneath. So, working with these special restrictions, especially in locations like Central London, has led to some unique site set-ups and welfare arrangements.
It’s important to utilise a light manual handling team and focus heavily on keeping transport to a minimum. Aside from ensuring good quality welfare arrangements, it’s also important to utilise close head office locations and just-in-time deliveries to keep the delivery process fast and simple.
There are, however, some surprising similarities to more traditional industrial fit outs too. Indeed, the internal liner system often used on the soffit of the arches is almost identical to profiled cladding sheets used in the industrial sector. Similarly, the internal fit outs in terms of building fabric are the same.
The work involved can often be complex and require close collaboration
Similarly, new curtain wall systems are often removed and replaced, and drainage is extensively upgraded. To help disperse water ingress from the arches above and discharge it into new drainage, interior soffits can be relined with a new modern liner system.
New building fabric works, such as new toilets and decorations, are also frequently required to improve the interior and exterior aesthetic.
Refurbished railway arches are ideal for business use
Offering unique perspectives and locations, refurbished and renovated railway arches are suitable for a myriad of different business types or industries, whether that be retail hospitality or light industrial.
With sustainability an extremely important consideration of any construction project, retrofitting old railway arches, which have significantly lower embodied carbon levels than say, a new build equivalent for light industrial space, could actually help to reduce carbon emissions.
When speaking to Josh Baggott, capital projects manager at The Arch Company, he highlighted the importance of utilising vacant space and enabling more small businesses to operate from them.
He also said that in recent months, after completing many projects across Greater London in locations along the viaduct from Battersea to Bermondsey, the Project 1000 programme is successfully bringing dilapidated space not suitable for occupation back into a useable condition and ready for businesses to operate from.
Acknowledging the effective relationship we have with The Arch Company, Josh explained that they have found our pre-contract and site delivery teams to be engaged, with good responsiveness and an approach to problem solving which, when combined with good workmanship, achieves a great product at the end of the project.
Our collaboration with The Arch Company is only one example of a results-driven partnership in the railway arch sector, but the significant opportunity to create many more thriving business environments is set to increase interest and investment. There are unique challenges and there are impressive solutions, which makes the sector one which we can all learn from.
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