Post-occupancy evaluation: Houlton, Alconbury Weald and Priors Hall Park

Client: Urban&Civic

Project type: Post Occupancy evaluation

Location: Houlton (Rugby, Warwickshire), Alconbury Weald (Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire) and Priors Hall Park (Corby, Northamptonshire)

Timeline: September 2021- March 2022

What was the project?

Urban&Civic wanted to understand residents’ lived experience of three new developments. They wanted to use resident feedback to inform the management of those sites as well as the future design of their homes and neighbourhoods, particularly in relation to the next phase of each development. 

As part of the pilot of our post-occupancy evaluation service – Resident Review – we provided insights into what residents thought and felt about their neighbourhoods, and we were able to benchmark this against national data.

The work provided specific recommendations for Urban&Civic and featured in a broader series of pilots to develop the Resident Review methodology, which was shared with industry through a report published in July 2022.

What did we do?

We conducted Resident Review surveys across three Urban&Civic sites: Houlton, Alconbury Weald and Priors Hall Park.

The Resident Review survey is based on the Quality of Life Framework, and provides evidence-based recommendations to improve residents’ health, wellbeing and quality of life.

We combined desk research with face-to-face and digital engagement on the sites:

Desk research: We carried out desk research in the early stages of the project to better understand the social and geographical context of the sites.

Site visit and face-to-face engagement: We visited the three sites and carried out in-depth interviews with three residents on each site. We also spent time walking around the developments, getting to know the area, and speaking with residents on the street.

Digital engagement: We recruited respondents to our survey through a mixture of physical and digital communications, including promoting the survey through existing online community groups.

Our in-house researchers analysed the results, identifying what was good about each site and what needed improvement. We set the data against the Quality of Life Framework themes. Our urban designers then looked at the analysis and provided recommendations on what could be done to alleviate key issues in the future.

What was the impact?

Urban&Civic are using what they’ve learnt through this process to embed quality of life into their sustainability metrics and into design codes going forward.

Next steps

We will be working with Urban&Civic on two more sites in 2023, and then return to the original sites we surveyed in 2024.

This longitudinal view of neighbourhoods is an exemplar of the kind of post-occupancy evaluation work we wish to carry out, and demonstrates a long-term commitment on Urban&Civic’s part to the health and wellbeing of their residents and communities.