Edge Lane site, TIME Project, Merseyside

Sector: Mental Health
Client: Mersey Care NHS Trust
Role: Lead Consultant and Architect
Value: £18.5m
Status: Ongoing - Planning permission granted Spring 2011

The Edge Lane Hospital site is one of five chosen for mental healthcare development as part of the Mersey Care NHS Trust TIME (To Improve Mental Health Environments) Project. Located east of Liverpool city centre, the site is situated alongside Edge Lane which is a major route into Liverpool. The new facilities will offer 85 inpatient beds and support accommodation set in the context of local whole service system provision.

This project is to be a case study for a research programme funded by the Government’s Technology Strategy Board. The ‘Design for Future Climate Change: Adapting Buildings’ programme funds 26 key project case studies from different sectors to better understand how buildings can be designed to be adaptable to future climate change. Edge Lane Hospital site is to be a case study project for the research programme funded by the government’s Technology Strategy Board. Working with climate researchers at Oxford Brookes University, and services engineers Mott MacDonald Fulcrum, we are modelling adaption strategies and future climate scenarios for 2030, 2050 and 2080. There will be a need to maintain human comfort levels in a low carbon-use future and buildings will need to resist greater extremes of temperature, precipitation and wind speeds, whilst remain viable and flexible for longer. The research findings will be widely disseminated to raise awareness across the industry as to how buildings can be future proofed to be sequentially upgradeable.