Bizspace – Newton Heath

The development is made up of 28 units ranging from industrial units to office space. The main building on site dates back to the 1880’s and was once home to Wilsons Brewery and has now been refurbished, offering four floors of rentable office and studio space. The rest of the site comprises largely of industrial warehouse storage and workshop space.

The project objective was to not only improve the energy efficiency of the buildings and the potential to reduce energy costs, but to align with recent changes to upcoming EPC regulations. This stems from the announcement that MEES future trajectory requirements for non-domestic rented properties will likely need to  achieve a B rating or better by 2030. (https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/non-domestic-private-rented-sector-minimum-energy-efficiency-standards-epc-b-implementation)

Therefore, Bizspace have a corporate objective to ensure their sites across the UK meet these targets.

Envision were appointed to carry out multiple EPC surveys across the UK including the Newton Heath site in order to obtain baseline EPC ratings of all the buildings on site. These base EPC ratings provided us with a starting point and indicated which buildings on site were close to the required B rating and those which would require greater improvements. Based on the EPC surveys we modelled all buildings using Designbuilder software and provided a range of recommendations bespoke to each building type. These recommendations ranged from improving the fabric performance of the buildings, through to mechanical improvements such as installation of electric heating systems with improved efficiencies.

The recommendations we provided to the client not only were the most appropriate for that specific building but were also the most cost-effective method of getting the building to the required B rating. Many factors were included in our decision making, such as reducing the potential disruption to the tenant by opting for LED lighting and space heating and hot water upgrades first. 

One particular building on site that posed a challenge to reach the targeted EPC B rating was Units 1-2 which are located within the old Brewery building constructed in the 1880’s, this was largely due to the size of the building and its outdated thermal performance. One factor we were very conscious of was the potential challenges we would face with altering the buildings fabric performance, as this would likely cause changes to the Victorian aesthetic of the building loosing its original character. Therefore, for these units we produced a couple of options listing the improvements we would make, limiting the amount of fabric and structural changes within each option. We also provided likely estimated costs these improvements would incur based on current industry costings and the specific EPC rating improvement each recommendation would provide. This provided the client with greater flexibility as to which improvements they opted for and is something we have offered across all of Bizspace’s Sites.