Hillington Square, King's Lynn

Working with Freebridge Community Housing (FCH), Lovell took on the complex, complete refurbishment of 229 flats, including Decent Homes works, new utilities across the estate, selective demolition of redundant walkways and staircores, new doors and windows, re-roofing, re-rendering, construction of extensions, new stair and lift cores, new hard and soft landscaping. The residents were decanted into vacant properties during the works. FCH self-funded the works, and we worked with them - successfully - to research further sources of funding.

Collaboration

We put in place an extensive formal engagement programme to ensure collaboration at every level:

• Core Group - Senior representatives from Lovell and FCH met every six months to discuss the scheme and receive reports from all the subgroups.

• Communications Subgroup - Lovell and FCH project, training, communications and marketing teams focused on wider social objectives, events, marketing and joint training.

• Design Subgroup - Lovell and FCH representatives included our architect, structural engineer, M&E engineer, and landscape architect, with a focus on progress of design, alterations for future phases, planning status and value engineering.

• Procurement Subgroup - Lovell and FCH's financial and commercial teams monitored the procurement to achieve the budget as well as find opportunities to deliver cost savings.

• Community Updates - Lovell and FCH worked together to provide a project-specific newsletter, a Hillington Square website and updates via Twitter feeds.

• Partner Focus Group - Our project team was involved in the town-wide Partner Focus Group, which addressed local issues and sought to improve day-to-day life for the community.

Mr Pennington, 23, has lived on the estate since he was 10 years old.  He said,

People used to say, ‘You’re brave!’ when I said I lived on Hillington Square, but I’ve not heard that since the revamp. People say it looks nice now and are trying to get houses here.

Community impact

The impact that has been felt in the community cannot be underestimated.  It has been our privilege to become a central part of the community in so many ways and we have enjoyed being able to make donations to a wide range of causes. In addition, we helped to deliver:

• Improved living environment and health of residents.

• Revitalising a run-down and undesirable area: when refurbishment plans were brought forward, few households wanted to return. The rates of return are now very high.

• Enhanced security and safety – with each block now separated into an individual apartment complex complete with separate, video-controlled entrances.

• Enhanced skills programmes – we worked with: CITB Open Doors events, On Track Education Services and the Jog On project, as well as creating apprenticeships and trainee placements.