Niamh Roseway-Jones, Architect at BHB Architects, speaking:
My name is Niamh Roseway-Jones and I'm the lead architect from BHB Architects on the Brinton Park project. Our works at Brinton Park have been quite long-standing. We've been on the job since about 2019 and really we're looking to reinstate really key, critical community aspects to the park. We've already got the splash pad and we've got some parking and the beautiful landscape arrangements, but it's bringing those together and providing essential necessities that we're missing. So, a new café and activity space from what was the former Sons of Rest building, the landscaped pool, and just improving critical facilities such as the parking and access around the park. The Sons of Rest building, unfortunately, due to badgers and damage, the building did have to come down. We knew the historical importance of the building, so a decision was made to reinstate what was there, but also include an extension and a new terrace and café. You're going to have a lovely view out across the pool as well. or sit on the terrace, enjoy a coffee.
Louis Davis, Site Manager at McPhillips, speaking:
Hi, I'm Louis Davis. I'm the site manager over here at Brinton Park for McPhillips. As you can see behind us, we are now in the phase of the scaffold up to the first lift. As you can imagine, we have come across problems, but rapidly rectifying and engaging with our architects to overcome these problems.
Councillor Marcus Hart, Leader of Wyre Forest District Council, speaking:
We have £2.4 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund, which we are investing into our heritage park within the district, and this is a really exciting project for the residents of Kidderminster and the wider Wyre Forest and importantly to bring in people from outside the district. There are other towns nearby that have cafes, many people say "why haven't you got one in Brinton Park?" and here we're going to be providing one. I think it's important to say this is capital monies to spend on a specific park. So we can't spread this money unfortunately across other parks within Kidderminster and the wider Wyre Forest, but we do invest in those parks as well. But this is specifically from the Heritage Lottery and it's really exciting and we're looking forward to this project being completed later on this year.
Niamh Roseway-Jones, Architect at BHB Architects, speaking:
From an architectural perspective when we were looking at the design of the building, we were bringing in some key aspects from looking at old historic photographs. So we've got a new pergola going in over the terrace and we're also looking at the existing openings and fenestrations on the building to correspond with that. But equally, we've got some new timber cladding going on at the extended part of the building. So, we're starting to see how that's coming together and working with McPhillips as well to look at how that will sit and how that will look. It's really actually quite exciting to see the building starting to progress now, about six months into the project, and I think this is where it starts to get really exciting from a building's perspective. I'm also more excited to get inside the building and how that's going to look internally with the new café and the sort of the servery counter and bringing in some elements from the outside into the building as well with sort of timber features and bringing that connection back to nature on the project as well. On the original Sons of Rest building, there were two plaques, one on the front of the building and one on the rear. And we've been working with the Wyre Forest planning department and the client team to look at where those plaques are going to be reinstated in respectful locations. Where we've got the pergola, we've adjusted the location so that the plaques can be seen. We're also looking to reinstate a new plaque to commemorate the rebuild of the Sons of Rest, and of course, the project is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, so we want to commemorate that as well. When we were looking at the design of the ornamental pool, we were inspired by what used to be here. We were able to look at old historic photographs of the site and we were drawn from the original layout of the pool and we've been able to reinstate that. We've also got a new ornamental foot bridge going in, so we used old historic photographs to inspire that design.
Louis Davis, Site Manager at McPhillips, speaking:
We are looking at installing aquatic plants within the pond and planting around the ornamental pool. We're also installing the ornamental bridge over the back which you can see is now under construction. At the moment the entrance to come into the car park is very narrow and it can be quite awkward with two cars coming. As you can see behind us, we are doing a new access route which will be turned into a one-way system. At the moment, we are just constructing the road detail, so curbs are going in. We've also installed some new disabled parking bays which will be located just as you come into the car park on the right hand side.
Niamh Roseway-Jones, Architect at BHB Architects, speaking:
The toilet block is going to be refurbished which will include a new roof, and an internal fit out. We're going to be doing some timber cladding to the side elevations and repainting the render panels. We'll include cleaning up the brick work to get rid of all the graffiti, and there's going to be new windows and doors and the iron work will be repainted on the outside. So, we're just improving the essential services at the park as well.