AWE submit planning application to West Berkshire Council for vast new development
AWE has submitted a planning application for a significant new development at the nuclear weapon facility.
Dubbed ‘the hub’, the complex proposal, which contains research laboratories, office space, engineering workshops, and a learning centre, would be spread over a vast 9.3 hectare area, equal to the size of just over 13 football pitches.
The development’s design and access statement says: “The hub development will provide a contemporary and significant work of architecture, whose key objective is to attract world class scientists, researchers, administrators and secure future operations through apprenticeship, learning and teaching spaces.”
This comes after an Office for Nuclear Regulation report on AWE Aldermaston and Burghfield published in January found some of the facilities’ operations to be inadequate.
However, AWE insisted the new development plans were not submitted in response to the recent report.
A representative of the facility said: “The hub is part of an ongoing programme of improvements to the AWE estate as outlined in the long-term site development context plan, which sets out a phased programme of development.
“The overall approach to the modernisation of the site is based on the consolidation and rationalisation of facilities constructed mainly in the 1950s and 1960s.
“The hub will facilitate the closure, demolition, and clearance of approximately 75,000 sq m gross internal area (GIA) of existing buildings on the site.”
The hub would be centred around two three-storey buildings connected by an enclosed street that would contain an engineering wing, a science wing, an office wing and a learning wing.
The plans also contain a separate two-storey structure called the ‘calibration building’, a facility for specific research close to the engineering wing of the main building.
“Catering facilities, a gymnasium, occupational health, an educational collection, and retail provision are also incorporated”, said an AWE representative.
The total internal space of the new development equals 42,785 sq m, not including ancillary buildings such as bicycle shelters, sprinkler tanks, substations and waste and gas bottle storage.
The hub would host around 3,000 AWE staff relocated from other surrounding buildings, with the day-to-day occupancy of the new development being in the region of 1,300.
The hub would not contain manufacturing and operational space, instead providing: “a significant part of the science, engineering and associated capabilities that are essential to support AWE’s work”.
The hub’s design and access statement says the new facility would make AWE “successor ready”.
“By transforming the way that capabilities are delivered, AWE will become ‘match-fit’ to meet government future deterrent requirements as set out in recent policy announcement to replace current provision.”
The consultation period for the planning application submitted by AWE will end on Friday, July 1, with West Berkshire Council's planning committee to make a decision by Tuesday, August 30.
