The region’s first certified PassivHaus office at client Raynsway Properties’ Watermead Business Park in Syston was given the seal of approval by Business Secretary Vince Cable MP last night after he visited the recently completed project.

Dr Cable praised the ‘extraordinary building’ as he was given a tour around the 6,000 sq ft premises by representatives from key partners Raynsway, Interserve, CPMG Architects and environmental building consultants CPW, during which he was able to learn more about sustainable development and more specifically about the principles of PassivHaus.

He congratulated everyone involved in the project and spoke of the need to look at similar schemes for industrial and commercial buildings across the country, saying that “energy efficiency needs to be a key consideration in the construction of any new build offices and commercial premises”.

The £1.5m state of the art facility pushes the boundary of environmentally friendly design and is now home to around 50 employees from Interserve - one of the world’s foremost support services and construction companies.

Vince Cable is given a tour around the new PassivHaus office at the Watermead Business Park in Leicester

Tom Watkinson from Raynsway Properties (right) speaks in more details to Vince Cable MP about PassivHaus

The new PassivHaus office at Watermead Business Park

Pupils from St Botolph’s Church of England Primary School in Shepshed took part in a literacy competition supported by client, Newby Castleman this month. Pupils from Years 4 and 5 entered a contest to help stimulate creative thinking and writing, based on a fictional scenario where a character finds a large seed sitting in a jar labelled “This seed should never be planted”. Pupils were then encouraged to explain what happened when the character planted the seed. The three top entrants received book vouchers and Newby Castleman also donated tickets for the class to see the stage adaptation of the children’s book Mr Stink, written by David Walliams, that was recently held at Leicester’s Curve Theatre.

Annalise Lovett Partner at Newby Castleman with the winners

The Unsworth Sugden PR team has been helping Pure Gym with its publicity prior to the launch of its new branch in Leicester today.

The old Sturgis Land Rover garage on Walnut Street has been transformed into new premises for the state of the art, 24 hour, low cost, no contract gym with more than 200 pieces of the latest exercise equipment.

The fully air conditioned gym also offers its members over 40 free classes including spinning, circuits and legs, bums and tums. Members will receive a free exercise induction and access to a dedicated member’s area on the website complete with online training and nutritional advice.  A personal training service will also be available.

As well as securing coverage in the Leicester Mercury, other local media and some trade titles in the build up to its launch we also invited Gemma Collins, features writer at the Mercury, down to have a look round and try out some of the state of the art equipment for herself. You can read her brilliant write-up HERE.

For more info about Pure Gym’s new Leicester branch you can visit the website at www.puregym.com, visit the Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pure-Gym-Leicester/192480670786826 or Twitter at @puregym.  

Pure Gym in Leicester - open now!

Gym manager Julie, assistant manager Nick and Sophie from the BHF

A new Leicester gym, due to open in the city next month, will be putting its fitness instructors to the test to raise money for heart patients.

Staff at Pure Gym, which is located on Walnut Street, are taking part in a fundraising ‘row-a-thon’ on Tuesday 2^nd August after it’s new 24 hour, state of the art club opens later this month.  The team hopes to row for 10 hours between 10am and 8pm.

All money raised will go towards the British Heart Foundation’s (BHF) Mending Broken Hearts Appeal - a major new programme of research in regenerative medicine to find a cure for heart disease.  The Mending Broken Hearts project involves stem cell research and developmental biology to work out how to repair or replace damaged heart muscle to literally ‘mend broken hearts’ in as little as 10 years time.

Julie Suggitt, General Manager for the new Pure Gym, said instructors would be rowing non-stop in a bid to encourage donations from its growing number of new members.  “The British Heart Foundation is a great cause and hopefully a charity we’ll continue to support in the future.  We also want to encourage people to think about their own health and wellbeing,” said Julie.

Helping the instructors shape up for the event has been British Heart Foundation Fundraising Volunteer Manager Sophie Jardine.

Sophie said, “I like to keep in shape so I’m looking forward to seeing what the Pure Gym instructors can do during the row-a-thon. I hope the public get behind them to because it’s in aid of a great cause. Heart and circulatory disease is the UK’s biggest killer and people who are physically active are half as likely to get cardiovascular disease than those that are inactive.

“It is great that Pure Gym is supporting our Mending Broken Hearts Appeal and I urge all the new gym members to get on board and back them.”

Anyone interested in joining Pure Gym is being encouraged to do so now before the opening non 8^th July, to make the most of the introductory rate of just £9.99 per month.

For more information visit the website at www.puregym.com or visit the Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pure-Gym-Leicester/192480670786826 or Twitter @puregym.

Whilst many people sit back and watch this year’s Wimbledon Championships whilst tucking into their strawberries and cream, the Unsworth Sugden PR team has been busy serving up some great coverage for client Schlüter-Systems after the leading supplier of tile solutions installed several of its market leading products at the world famous Number One Court.

Many of the hospitality suites surrounding the 11,429 capacity court at the All England Lawn Tennis Club, which plays host to many of the world’s best tennis players during the two-week Grand Slam tournament, now feature amongst other products the famous orange Schlüter-DITRA matting, the world’s leading uncoupling membrane which neutralises cracks and prevents movements from the screed being transferred to the tiled surface of the various hospitality areas and terraces.

After commissioning some tennis themed PR photography shots and issuing a press release, we received coverage in both the local media such as this fab piece in the Leicester Mercury and this article in Midlands Business Insider; plus many of the building and tiling trade titles including Tilezine and Building Talk.

Schlüter-Systems' Stuart Ross with the Schlüter-DITRA matting

The phrase ‘Charity Tuesday’ isn’t solely confined to Twitter today after work by the Unsworth Sugden PR team saw coverage in this morning’s Leicester Mercury for client Westleigh Developments. This comes after its commercial division welcomed the regional office of a leading national charity to its LE3 office park in Leicester Forest East.

Tuesdays on the social networking and micro blogging website appear to have been designated as the chosen day of the week for charities and good causes to raise awareness and tell the world both what they do and when they do it, using the hashtag #charitytuesday.

So it seems quite apt that we have received coverage on a Tuesday for our press release about Alzheimer’s Society relocating its office for Leicester City, Leicestershire and Rutland from Humberstone Gate in the city centre to new premises at the development, close to junction 21a of the M1, which provides it with more space and the opportunity for future growth.

We spoke to representatives from the charity, Westleigh and property agents Innes England to gauge their opinions on the move and the local commercial property market before also organising photography and liaising with the paper. The end result was this great piece in today’s Business supplement.

(from left to right) Matt Moore of Westleigh, Sally Grundy of Alzheimer’s Society and Chris Page from Innes England at LE3

This morning’s Leicester Mercury features more post-Budget coverage for another of our local PR clients.

After Westleigh Developments appeared in last Thursday’s paper, today is the turn of fellow property developer Raynsway Properties as managing director Tom Watkinson gives a cautious welcome to plans to overhaul the planning system and further reaction to the removal of red tape for businesses and Leicestershire not being named as one of the 10 selected enterprise zones across the UK.

For those of you with a copy of today’s paper you can read the article on page 10 of the business supplement, otherwise you can read a PDF of the article here.

Tom Watkinson, MD of Raynsway Properties, gives his reaction to the Budget in today's Leicester Mercury

Will George help the commercial property market in tomorrow's Budget or won't he?

EDIT: Afternoon of Wednesday 23rd March - Reaction to the Budget:

In response to the question posed in the title of this blog - not an awful lot! At least not at first glance. There are a number of reforms earmarked for the planning regime which sound interesting, which on paper could make life for developers a little easier. But as with all these things, whilst they sound very nice, how long will it take these new rules to kick in? Hopefully not “a number of years”, which the Chancellor seemed to say about a number of his proposals today.

Keep watching for the blog for more ‘post-Budget’ comments from our clients.

Client and regeneration specialist, Urban Rhythm was last night (Monday 21^st March) granted planning permission for the £20 million redevelopment of the former Wheatsheaf Works Boot and Shoe Factory, on Knighton Fields Road East, Leicester.

When it was built in 1891, Wheatsheaf Works was one of the largest footwear factories in the world. Owned by the Co-operative Wholesale Society, it supplied a wealth of employment opportunities in the south east of Leicester. 

The landmark site, with its two Grade II listed factory buildings and clock tower, will now be transformed into 172 high quality homes to meet the housing needs of the local community.

Plans for the development, which comprises a mixture of brand new townhouses and converted homes in the original buildings, have been devised by Leicester architects JSP Architecture.  The project will be developed by Urban Rhythm - the specialist regeneration arm of luxury local housebuilder The Hazelton Group.

Richard Hazelton, Commercial Director at The Hazelton Group said, “We are delighted to have been granted planning permission for this stunning new development.

“We’re sure our refurbishment of the Grade II listed buildings, which have been left derelict for the past 10 years, and development of the surrounding site will act as a catalyst to draw homeowners to the area and help to regenerate the local community. 

“The scheme will breathe new life back into a building steeped in history so that it may be appreciated as an integral part of the community once again.”

Justin Fox, Design Architect at JSP Architecture said, “We are pleased to be working with Urban Rhythm on such a landmark site in the city of Leicester and deliver a scheme of this quality and magnitude in the current economic climate.

“We will continue to liaise closely with Leicester City Council to ensure that our desire to score very highly on the Building for Life criteria, which is a new integral part of the City Council’s core strategy, is achieved.”

The ornate, Neo-Jacobean main factory building will be converted into a series of townhouses using contemporary interventions into the existing fabric of the building.  The homes will be located around an extensive landscaped courtyard.  This layout will help ensure the development has a real sense of community.

The design of the new build houses will contrast the beautiful historic façade of the listed buildings and help to further create this new community drawing on the founding principles of the Co-operative philosophy of community living. Urban Rhythm will work to ensure that these homes reach either Eco Homes Level ‘Very Good’ or Code Sustainable Homes Level 3.

For more information about the new homes at Wheatsheaf Works, call Urban Rhythm on 01536 714920 or visit www.hazeltonhomes.com/urban/

A CGI of the Wheatsheaf Works development

Following the successes of Mayfair-Prestige’s luxury car hire website, Unsworth Sugden’s digital division US Digital has been appointed to design and build the website for the company’s chauffeur division. The website’s design will encompass the divisions luxurious service whilst keeping a clean cut, modern feel to enhance user experience. Keep an eye out for news of its launch coming soon! 

This month has also seen US Digital build and launch Zone 3’s ecommerce website. Zone 3 provide the latest in triathlon wetsuits and clothing using their experiences of competing in the sport on a national and international level. Why not have a look for yourself http://www.racezone3.com/.