Architecture + Design Scotland

Alloa Harbour Masterplan

18 October 2007

Extracted from a letter to Clackmannanshire Council, Development and Environmental Services

Thank you for your letter dated 12^th June 2007 enclosing details of the current application. The designs were discussed at internal design review comprising A+DS Panel Members and staff.

We support the principle of the development. The importance of this site is acknowledged in the Development Framework document, which describes the redevelopment of the site as a significant opportunity to re-establish a nucleus of activity focused on the waterfront.

The Design Statement that accompanies the planning application recognises this, and includes a thorough site analysis and description of relevant design principles and policy context. However, the translation of this analysis into a design concept is less clearly explained, and we have difficulty in understanding how the design has been arrived at and relates to this analysis and the earlier framework document. Furthermore, it would appear that the design concept plan within the Design Statement differs substantially from the proposed site plan.

In accordance with Scottish Executive's policy statement ‘Designing Places' the masterplan should "describe and illustrate the proposed urban form in three dimensions" and "explain how that form will achieve the intended vision for the place". The current masterplan does not demonstrate this and requires considerable design development. In addressing this, we suggest that the following issues require further explanation and clarification:

• pedestrian linkages and views through the site;
• quality of public realm;
• height and massing, particularly the relationship between the buildings and the waterfront;
• provision of public space;
• relationship of the development to human scale;
• character and identity;
• relationship of the development to Bowhouse Road and its connection to the new school;
• an explanation of how the proposed Home Zone will work;
• and, as required in Condition 1 of the Outline Planning Permission, a landscape framework.

We would like to be consulted again once the masterplan has been developed.

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