GCC024 - Architect / Planning – Wessex House

Please note that the draft contract will follow when available. We wish to appoint a lead architect who will subcontract for a series of other professional services to draught and submit a full planning application for the Wessex House site. Pre-application advice has been sought previously and the pre-application documents and feedback from planning officers will be made available to the successful consultant team. Wessex House was formally the site of buildings connected to the Gloucester Poor Law Union Workhouse. Prior to the construction of the workhouse in the 1830s, the site was open fields, and then garden plots. Additional facilities, namely an Infirmary and Casual wards, were built later. The buildings were requisitioned during the Second World War, but were then demolished between 1949 and 1950. The land was leased to the General Electric Company, who constructed Magnet House, later to become Wessex House on the site. Wessex House was itself demolished between 2018 and 2020. The site extends to 0.60 of an acre and is bounded by Network Rail land forming part of Gloucester railway station on three sides, with direct frontage to Great Western Road forming the fourth side. The land is level and owned freehold entirely by the Authority with boundary fencing on all sides. Remedial works have been completed including archaeological investigations and reporting together with removal of former slab foundations and services. The site has been levelled and fencing constructed around its border with a height restricted access gate.