Green light for new sustainable offices
Town Centre: Plans approved for six storey timber building
The council has approved the latest plans for a new ‘highly sustainable’ timber office building on the area formerly known as The Landing.
Now called ‘One Maidenhead’, this development is within the triangular site bounded by King Street, Queen Street and Broadway.
There is already planning permission for six buildings – a mixture of residential and commercial. This includes 429 homes, ground floor retail spaces and public areas, all completed earlier this month.
They were designed by Studio Egret West and are owned and managed by Get Living.
The new public square features new art installations from Maidenhead artist Kirsty Brooks.
Also included in the application is a new office building in the corner. This is the subject of the fresh planning application under discussion this week.
Its newly proposed offices will be within a timber building of six storeys providing 6,000sqm of space.
Named Trehus (Norwegian for ‘house of wood’), it is designed to be a ‘truly sustainable’ structure, according to developers HUB and Norwegian investor Smedvig.
Designed by Waugh Thistleton, its ‘timber superstructure’ will reduce embodied carbon by 40 per cent compared to a concrete frame.
The façade design aims to reduce solar gain while maximising natural light, reducing reliance on artificial lighting, heating, and cooling.
Trehus will also feature a roof terrace and public spaces with rain gardens and biodiverse planting.
Developers are aiming to start construction later this year, with a view to delivering the completed scheme by the end of 2026.
In a report by the council, officers noted that the site already had planning permission for a seven-storey building.
Therefore this newer plan, which has equivalent office floorspace, ‘would represent an improvement over the consented scheme in terms of design and impact’.
“The proposed development would be of excellent design quality and meet the requirements for a tall building in this location,” officers wrote.
Councillors at the Maidenhead Development Management Committee on Wednesday were all in agreement, lauding the reduction in carbon emissions and the lowered height.
Cllr Gary Reeves (Lib Dem, Cox Green), said: “A large part of the roof is not covered by solar panels, it’s an organic material, which I think is encouraging.
“If we’re going to develop anywhere in the centre, let’s look at how we can break that up, make it more organic – living walls, living roofs. We really should be encouraging developers to think more and more about that.”
He also praised the significant number of cycle parking spaces (53), helping future office staff use active travel while not increasing the burden on the already overused racks at Maidenhead railway station.
The one concern raised was by Cllr Maureen Hunt (Con, Hurley and Walthams) who had queries about the parking impact, given not everyone can cycle.
Parking for this building is to be provided off-site within an existing town centre car park.
Given there will be ‘a lot more flats built’ and Maidenhead has one town centre car park and one out-of-town-centre car park, Cllr Hunt was concerned about increased pressure.
“I’m a bit concerned whether the car park we're waiting for in the town centre will be built in time to allay any lack of car parking,” she said.
Cllr Hunt said it would be ‘good to know that this build can take place at the same time as the car park rebuild’ – but expressed doubt this would happen.
Nonetheless, Cllr Gurch Singh (Lib Dem, St Mary’s) called for a unanimous vote in favour of the application to ‘send the message’ that ‘good sustainable developments is what we want in this borough’.
Members of the panel did indeed vote unanimously in favour of the proposals.