Planning permission has been granted for the Brooklands College campus located close to Weybridge station in Surrey. Designed by PRP, the proposals will bring forward a truly diverse community of mixed-use educational, residential and leisure development.
PRP was appointed by CALA Homes and Brooklands College to develop a landscape-led sustainable mixed-use masterplan. The respectful proposals honour the site’s rich context and history, providing highly sustainable new homes, 40 per cent of which will be affordable. A new community hub building with a sports hall will be available for students and local residents sitting alongside the enhanced and reinvigorated college campus facilities. It will also deliver much-needed Special Educational Needs provision and upgrade the existing teaching facilities to create a college that will support and inspire students and the local community for years to come.
The site boasts a very interesting history, from its beginnings as Brooklands Farm as early as the seventeenth century before a now listed mansion house was built by the Locke Kings who went on to build Brooklands motor racing circuit nearby. In the 1950s the mansion house and grounds were developed into a technical college that form the current occupants of the estate. PRP’s masterplan ensures the viability and the continued operational status of Brooklands College campus and includes the sensitive restoration of the site’s Grade II listed mansion house and its historic terraced gardens.
This landscape-led plan opens up 14 hectares of new public open space, including accessible public parkland to the wider community. Of this, 10 hectares are preserved woodland, which are proposed as a new Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspace (SANG) within maintained woodland.
Ben Williamson, Director at PRP said:
“It is a privilege to work in such a rich historic and landscaped setting and we are excited that these proposals will open up access for everyone to enjoy this fabulous local asset.”