Members of the project team at construction consultants Edmond Shipway in Nottingham are delighted that the £50 million BIG Lottery Fund bid for a programme to revamp the county’s prestigious Sherwood Forest Visitor Centre has received full planning permission.

The bid will now be submitted to a television vote in December.

Edmond Shipway has been appointed and is working on behalf of a partnership of 16 organisations led by Nottinghamshire County Council

Key to the plans is what project manager and Edmond Shipway partner David Stevenson believes is the heart and soul of the proposals – The Tree, a new visitor complex built to an iconic design but with its design rooted in the environment and the history of the region.

The Tree will provide the central visitor information centre for the whole Sherwood area, an education and discovery centre, state of the art exhibition and interpretation facilities telling the story of Sherwood and the Robin Hood Legend, a sustainable technology centre and retail and refreshment outlets with further meeting spaces and events facilities.

Since January this year, David Stevenson and his team at Edmond Shipway have been working closely with the design team that will turn the Sherwood Forest project into reality.

Edmond Shipway compiled the design brief and then facilitated a RIBA-managed competition on which Nottingham Evening Post readers were able to vote and help select the winning entries.

The team now includes MAKE architects whose Ken Shuttleworth spent nearly 30 years working for Sir Norman Foster and was involved in the design of the “gherkin” building at 30 St Mary’s Axe, London. Arup are engaged as consulting engineers, with Davis Langdon as quantity surveyors and RYB Konsult as M&E engineers.

David Stevenson said: “Sherwood Forest has enormous potential and we are hopeful that a Big Lottery Fund investment in this unique national asset could help us realise the dream for this project which has the working title ‘Sherwood: The Living Legend’.

The aim is to transform Sherwood Forest into a world class sustainable zero carbon destination, with energy from wind turbines, willow coppicing to fuel its own biomass boiler, and a sustainable drainage system. In so doing we aim to create an inspirational community resource for current and future generations.”

Mr Stevenson said that the project had several exciting components. As well as The Tree, the scheme would see the development of 95km of public access routes, 300 hectares (400 football pitches!) of forest replanting and up to 50 community projects – all to be made possible by The Big Lottery Fund.

“Since January we have been working on the design development and a full environmental impact assessment for the planning application and the committees decision to grant permission is a major milestone in our vision for the future of Sherwood.”

The Tree is intended as an iconic gateway for Sherwood Forest and central to the project has been the requirement to disperse the economic benefits to the wider Sherwood area and Nottinghamshire region.

The Sherwood Forest Visitor Centre is a major national enterprise that the three partners and a total of 40 staff at Edmond Shipway’s Nottingham office are justifiably proud to be leading and it is arguably their flagship project in what has been a very successful three year period of sustained growth for the Nottingham office.

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