28. A Phoenix Arises ?

Key words/concepts: "Bridge" development project, London Science Park

Post:

A reader wrote in recently to ask a couple of questions and made me aware at the same time of a new and very substantial project that is currently being developed on the old Littlebrook Power Station site to the East of (and bordering the boundary of) the old Joyce Green Hospital site.

Perhaps YOU are already aware of this prestigious building project but in case you are not, let me tell you a little of what I have been able to discover.

The project is called "The Bridge" and it involves Dartford Borough Council and ProLogis Developments Ltd working with two building companies: McAlpine plc and Wimpey, together with Hemingway Design to re-develop the whole 264 acre site for "mixed use".

The mix of buildings are going to include a science and technology park called The London Science Park, 710,000 sq ft of top quality office accommodation, 1,500 new homes laid out in districts - each with it's own character -and near to two newly created lakes, plus a mixture of hotels, leisure and retail facilities ... with integral transport links.

Gerardine and Wayne Hemingway - of Hemingway Design - who created the "Red or Dead" fashion label before branching out into housing project work (via the Staiths South Bank Project in Gatehead for instance) have been commissioned to assist with this one.

Building has apparently been progressing well and the "The Nucleus", the 30,000 sq ft innovation centre of the Science Park component of the project is due to be completed for Spring 2007.

It is anticipated that this innovation will create work for 7,500 people and an up-market environment for those who will soon be coming to live and work under the shadow of the now very familiar bridge linking Essex with Kent.

For more information why not visit the www.thebridgedartford.co.uk website?

Perhaps at the same time as wishing them well, we should keep our fingers crossed and hope at the same time that some of Joyce Green and its associated hospitals (and/or some of its personalities) will be remembered in the naming of some of the buildings, the roads and the 'districts', plus the hotels and the public facilities ?