Housed in a refurbished supermarket which had been derelict for nearly a decade, a locally built community space, which will include GP facilities, is set to breathe life into the Cornish town of Helston, says the clinical designer on the project – MJ Medical.
The Helston Gateway project will bring a GP surgery and community space – with aspirations for ‘an inspired youth centre’ featuring a climbing wall, community meeting rooms, and exercise studios – to the heart of the town. It will take just 12 months and £2.6 m of funding for the first phase of the ‘Net Zero building project’ to come to fruition. Work began in March 2024, and is due to complete next March.
On recently visiting the Helston Gateway project site, NHS England's Medical Director for Primary Care, Dr Claire Fuller, said: “This kind of innovation is wonderful to see. This integrated way of working will help to ensure patient-centred care that is provided as close as possible to home.”
MJ Medical, the clinical designer on the project, has developed a proposed design for the GP surgery for the upper ground floor – ‘based on key flexible principles’ which allow the practice to adapt its layout and rooms based on changing needs and ‘horizon medical technologies’. The design includes consultation rooms for outpatient appointments, alleviating the need for people to travel nearly an hour or more to the main hospital.
The team behind the project aims to achieve Net Zero carbon and the highest energy performance rating.
MD Medical explained that the shell of the former supermarket was built in 1984, and is surrounded by buildings and a car park. It said: “Powering the ground source heating for the new facility required the drilling of twelve boreholes to a total depth of 1.3 kms within the building footprint, while specialist glazing in 27 new windows will reduce thermal gain. To ensure that the building fabric is thermally insulated to the highest possible standard, a new building has effectively needed to be built inside the old shell. The south elevation of the 1,500 m2 roof will be covered with solar panels.”
Jonathan Kearsley from Trevissome Park, the project manager for the Helston Gateway Project, added: “This ambitious and inspired community-led project really benefited from private sector involvement, particularly with the design and build elements. Bringing in a healthcare consultancy with experience in developing world-leading hospitals means we can create top-notch clinical spaces quickly.”
South Kerrier Alliance CIC, the community interest company leading the project, secured capital funding for the medical and community space through Cornwall Council’s Good Growth Programme, with £2,131,806 provided from central Government’s UK Shared Prosperity Fund, and an additional £500,000 from Cornwall Council’s Town Centre Revitalisation Fund. The building will operate on a not-for-profit basis, ensuring that all income is re-invested back into the community.
“The first two months on site were spent demolishing the internal structures, removing the walk-in freezers, the lift and stairs, the tills and conveyors, and even the tobacconist shop from the old supermarket,” explained Trevissome Park’s Jonathan Kearsley. “We gained our funding on 1 March, so it was an immediate start. This is quite rare for a major construction project, only made possible through a mantra of local procurement underpinned by a very simple NEC 3(c) contract working on an open-book basis to deliver best value. We’ve been fortunate to find enough local people to carry out all aspects of the construction on a labour-only basis, even the electricians. As there are no large companies involved in the construction, every penny of our budget has been kept local to the project.”