Bourn Temporary Community Hub

Our Role

As part of the wider 3,500‑home Bourn Airfield development, the temporary Community Hub is a vital early-phase project that provides the emerging neighbourhood with an immediate focal point. While the long-term community facilities will arrive later in the programme, this temporary hub ensures residents, partners and local stakeholders have a dedicated space for information, connection and early activity during the first years of construction.

We were appointed to manage the end‑to‑end delivery of the hub, including securing planning approvals, coordinating statutory and community stakeholders, procuring contractors, and keeping the programme aligned with the early stages of the wider development.

Below, we outline how we’re designing and delivering a practical, flexible community space that supports early engagement while navigating the technical and logistical challenges of working within a live, multi‑phase construction environment.

Our Role and Approach

We were appointed to lead the full lifecycle of the temporary Community Hub, providing integrated specialist services from planning strategy through to procurement and delivery. Our Planning specialists guided the preparation of the planning application for both the building and its associated landscape proposals, ensuring the submission was supported by clear, robust technical evidence.

Following submission in July 2025, we coordinated responses to planning queries and oversaw the preparation of the Events Parking Management Plan, a key condition tied to visitor access and onsite movement. Full planning permission was granted in August 2025, with condition discharge achieved in December 2025.

Alongside planning activity, our Project Delivery & Management specialists led tendering and procurement for both the prefabricated hub structure and the supporting hard and soft landscape works. These procurement processes were structured to ensure value, compliance and programme certainty, allowing contractors to be appointed at the right time to support the Year 1 phase of the wider development.

Throughout the process, we maintained close communication with planning officers, contractors, residents, future occupiers and key stakeholders, ensuring the project remained transparent, coordinated and responsive.

Design and Delivery Strategy

The temporary Community Hub required a design strategy that balanced practicality, installation speed, and compatibility with the long-term masterplan. Working within the wider Bourn Airfield design parameters, our Engineering & Design specialists coordinated access routes, drainage considerations and the layout of both hard and soft landscaping to ensure the hub complemented the emerging street network and movement strategies.

Given that the hub sits within an area where infrastructure is still under construction, we devoted early effort to understanding constraints on site access, pedestrian safety, and vehicle movement. This included evaluating existing site conditions, future road alignments and how different user groups would reach the building once operational. These insights informed a revised access plan that included dedicated parking for visitors unable to walk or use public transport, along with safe pedestrian connections to the wider site.

The prefabricated structure approach will allow for fast installation while minimising disruption. Our specialists are coordinating technical requirements, programme sequencing, and contractor logistics to support installation, targeted for May 2026, enabling the hub to open for community use by June 2026.

Supporting the Growing Community

Although temporary, the hub plays an important role during the early years of the new development. It provides a welcoming, flexible space where residents and stakeholders can gather for project information, engagement sessions, consultation activities and community events.

The hub also gives the project team a place to host early social value initiatives, fostering community identity before permanent facilities are constructed. By opening in Year 1 of the development programme, the hub strengthens communication, encourages collaboration, and helps build trust among residents, delivery partners, and local organisations.

Challenges We Overcame

Delivering a facility within a live, phased development presents several challenges, most notably site access and early availability of infrastructure. The hub’s location means that access points, movement corridors, and construction routes require careful coordination. Balancing pedestrian priority with construction traffic and early-stage vehicle movement demands a solution that is safe, compliant and future-proof.

Working through the planning process, we led the preparation of revised access proposals that better reflected the emerging masterplan. These included dedicated visitor parking for those with limited mobility, safe footpath links and strategies to minimise impact on surrounding residential areas. By proactively addressing these challenges, we’ve ensured that movement arrangements are viable from day one, without compromising the delivery of later phases.