Inholm, Northstowe, built by House by Urban Splash, won a Housing Design Award in 2020
Gravity, the project to create the UK’s first smart campus, is ramping up collaboration with the local community and industry experts to explore how best to create a new employment-led community on the site of the former Royal Ordnance Factory (ROF) between Puriton and Woolavington.
Gravity aims to deliver a ‘clean’ (net-zero carbon) campus to create 4,000+ jobs. To attract the best businesses, which would bring the highest value jobs and greatest benefits for local communities, Gravity is creating plans that integrates employment space, homes, leisure and green space, supported by smart technology and sustainable transport.
The Gravity team is engaging with innovative businesses from across the built environment sector to explore the types of homes that could be created as part of the smart campus.
Among those businesses consulted is modern housebuilder House by Urban Splash; the business is a part of the Urban Splash family of companies and has track record in using modern methods of construction (MMC) to deliver zero or low carbon communities across the country. MMC is a new way of building. Using new techniques, including building homes offsite to assemble at Gravity, MMC can improve the quality and efficiency of new homes.
Gravity is engaging with business leaders like this to explore potential design solutions that will help create sustainably-designed homes as part of an integrated, employment-led community, which promotes healthy lifestyles by reducing the need for future residents to commute, and attracts the very best occupiers to the site to the benefit of the local area.
Claire Pearce, Director of Planning and Economic Planning at Gravity, explains: “Gravity is not ‘business as usual’; we are seeking to create a new and inclusive community that offers people the choice of a lifestyle where you can live, work and play in one exceptional place. This offering of an integrated, smart campus is important if Gravity is to create the optimum conditions for investment and attract high-quality international occupiers, creating 4000+ new jobs.
“It is fantastic to be working with innovative leaders from across the built environment sector, learning about their experiences and taking inspiration from their track records in creating great, design-led communities.”
Cllr Gill Slocombe, Deputy Leader and Portfolio Holder for Inward Investment and Growth for Sedgemoor District Council, added: “We are excited to see Gravity engaging with innovative industry leaders. As a pro-business area, we want Gravity’s smart campus and community to attract high value occupiers that can work with us to transform the area and create opportunities for our communities.
“Modern methods of construction offer great potential. These new ways of building are already feeding into Bridgwater and Taunton College’s curriculum for construction courses, inspiring Sedgemoor’s young people to think about future careers in this innovative space.”
Gravity’s next community webinar, ‘Gravity: creating a smart community’ will discuss how Gravity aims to create an inclusive, employment-led community that considers the wellbeing of people, as well as the planet. Taking place on 26 May 2021, you can join the discussion by registering here to join the webinar, or visit: https://thisisgravity.co.uk/community-join-the-conversation/
Ends
For more information, please contact Tori Madine at 07508 917 477 or tori.madine@social.co.uk.
Notes to editors
Image: Inholm, Northstowe, built by House by Urban Splash, won a Housing Design Award in 2020, from Urban Splash
About Gravity
Gravity will be the UK’s first commercial smart campus and a blueprint for a ‘cleaner’, smarter future. It aims to attract the world’s most innovative companies working in the ‘clean growth’ sectors.
Based on the site of the former Royal Ordnance Factory, between the villages of Puriton and Woolavington, Gravity will be home to businesses making a difference socially, economically, and environmentally. The aim is to drive the UK’s shift towards a zero-carbon economy, placing Sedgemoor at the centre of the clean growth revolution – benefitting local villages, the town of Bridgwater, and the wider region.
Expected to create around 4,000 jobs, the 616-acre Enterprise Zone will be designed to shape connections between people and the places they work, supporting a culture of innovation and wellbeing. It will include diverse, flexible workspaces and resilient technologies along with enhanced transport links to, and within, the surrounding area.
For further information, visit https://thisisgravity.co.uk/
House by Urban Splash For further information visit: https://www.housebyurbansplash.co.uk/
