As reported by News OnTheWight in yesterday’s podcast about the new Platform One Sustainable Fashion Degree, the former Top Shop building — now named P1 Wadhams — in Newport has undergone a radical transformation.
Our conversation also included insight from Sarah Chatwin from ERMC — an Isle of Wight company that carries out quantity surveying, architecture, project management, estate and land management and Net Zero building solutions – who has a very personal connection to this exciting project.
For those who want to dive straight in, you can listen to the podcast at the bottom of the article.
Personal investment
The building had been home to Wadhams for 130 years, but has been empty and unused since 2021, when Top Shop closed its doors for the last time. Then in the summer of 2022, Sarah and her family took the bold decision to invest their family’s in the regeneration of the building – bring it up to modern standards, with the project partners Platform One and ERMC. She told News OnTheWight,
“Regeneration is a word that we’ve all heard, it’s tends to be synonymous with a perception that the public sector are leading it, and often is led with grant opportunities. But this project is a co-creative project between Platform one and, and ERMC and my family.
“Because we want to show that we can take a brownfield building in the centre of town, and start that process. And it’s not just something that can be done from public sector perspective.”
“This building just gets under your skin”
Sarah explained that she’d been talking about the prospect of purchasing the building since December 2021, and had always had a vision for Newport’s regeneration as being “centre-focused”.
She said,
“This building just gets under your skin and I kept walking past it thinking that building’s too good to not do something quite fantastic with.”
Chatwin: Passionate about reusing existing structures
Having been involved in several regeneration projects around the county town, Sarah is clearly passionate about the reuse of old buildings.
The phrase ’embodied carbon’ came up during the conversation, something many people haven’t heard before. Happily Sarah was able to explain it.
It refers to the carbon already put into the atmosphere to build a original structure, which depending on its age, can mean that older buildings have already dealt with their ’embodied carbon’, so why knock them down and start again? As this would generate more carbon emissions. Sarah explained,
“When we’re looking at decarbonising globally, and in the UK, we’ve got targets around what’s commonly known as Net Zero. And in real estate terms Net Zero is around ensuring that buildings are efficient and running on minimum, minimum fuel, but you’ve also got to remember core primary resources.
“So I’m a massive advocate for many reasons, from a cultural, technical, and decarbonisation perspective, that we reuse our existing buildings.”
Getting the basics right for Net Zero
As you might imagine, when approaching a Net Zero stance, it’s important to get the basics right, first with insulation, then with layering on of ventilation and energy systems.
Sarah shared her insight,
“A building with history can inspire – subliminally – the users in a different way than potentially a brand spanking new shiny building could.
“Newport is a beautiful example of a Georgian town. If you look up when you walk around Newport, you see Georgian facades all over the show, largely untouched. It’s one of the reasons that Newport and Ryde were successful with funding for the Heritage Action Zones. They’re both premier examples of beautiful market towns in the UK.
“Wadhams is part of that streetscape, so when we looked at our investments, we looked at the potential of the space, and then we’ve invested probably much more than we could have done to bring a building that’s super well-insulated, well-considered, for its standing in that Net Zero framework.”
An appetite among landlords for change
It was also very good to hear that in terms of a Net Zero aspirations, projects like this can really inspire other landlords to follow suit, running against the view of some about “evil landlords”.
Sarah said she has seen an appetite among landlords for change,
“There’s no doubt that there’s been a underinvestment by commercial landlords over the last 50 years. In towns like Newport, Ryde, Ventnor, but that said, I wouldn’t call the landlords evil. They take long leases, with retailers who potentially are part from that picture, but actually the government has put a route map in place, and said, if you own a building, whether it’s your home, whether it’s your factory, whether it’s anything in between, you will be needing to improve that to maintain its viability.
“So I think landlords are engaging with that. They’re looking at their yields. They’re recognising the need to invest and they’re understanding things like, I saw one of the shops just across the road from us has done doing some really good work about making smaller units where they were a larger space. And that improves the diversity of the townscape.
“So I genuinely believe if you look at Newport in 2024, with the activity that’s going on, it’s going to start to really change.”
Chatwin: Life is much more colourful and validating than just thinking about yields
Believing in change and making a private investment in that in order to show what can happen is a bold and brave move on the Chatwin family’s part. We were keen to find out what their drivers are.
Sarah has worked professionally within the built environment sector completing many projects on the Isle of Wight and further afield over the years. She explained,
“I believe in regional context. We’ve looked at the importance of where our food comes from. When we go out to eat on the Island, we see the meat or the veggies come from a local source, we get that now, we value that. And I think actually if you extend that thought process across your whole parameters of your life, then your relationship with what you wear and how important the providence of the fabric that you choose is.
“And then as an investor, if I can be so bold as to call myself that, then why would I take on a non-geographic investment? Why would I do that? Why? If I believe in a regional democracy then I need to bring my investment much closer to home, so that the benefits of that investment are seen within my own community.
“So if yields are your only driver, then good luck, actually, life is much more colourful and validating than that.”
Listen to the podcast
Listen to the podcast to hear more about Platform One’s new Sustainable Fashion course, as well as the future plans for the building. The conversation runs for just over 35 minutes.
