The owners of one of the largest health and wellbeing centres in Leicestershire have outlined their vision for a sustainable health, leisure and residential project at their Market Harborough site.
Harborough Solar Rise is part of the Green Neighbour Project which is the brainchild of husband and wife team Alec and Stella Welton, owners of the Archway Health and Wellbeing Centre.
The project is the culmination of several years of planning and ongoing consultation and support from architects Zedpower, Market Harborough Planning Department and Lubenham Parish Council.
The ecological venture would expand the health and wellbeing services that Archway can offer at a time when emotional, physical and mental health has become a priority for many people.
The plans include designs for supplementary consulting rooms, a coffee shop/multi-functional community space, guestrooms with ensuite bathrooms for health stays, and dedicated studios for a wide range of classes including Yoga, Pilates, Nia and Barre.
The scheme would also enable the creation of additional office space and 8 self-build/custom-built homes.
The proposed development has been designed not just to enable the buildings to generate all their own power and heating needs, making them energy neutral, but to generate excess energy, making them energy positive. Using sustainable materials in the build, they will also be carbon neutral within four decades.
“We are acupuncturists by profession, practice owners by consequence and business owners out of necessity. We have never built anything and are definitely not property developers – but we are passionate about sustainability and we care about the world we live in, which is why what we create and how has such enormous personal significance for us,” says Alec Welton.
“Managing climate change is everything, as global warming is the greatest crisis of our times. We have already passed the point where all new buildings should be sustainably built and able to generate their own electricity and heating.
“We also need to aim for community micro-energy generation schemes in which households produce more sustainable power than they need, which they can then share with their neighbours. This is why we coined the phrase Green Neighbour Project.”
