Architect’s visualisations for Stapleford’s brand-new retail, office and makers’ centre – the Pencil Works.
The £6.2m building, funded through the Towns Fund, has been designed to offer high-quality facilities to support the town’s aims of becoming a great place to visit, work and do business.
It will be located on Victoria Street and is projected to create 50 jobs and 1,000 square metres of new retail, leisure and office space, including:
Ground floor
Creative makers’ space for specialist craftspeople and artists, publicly viewable from the roadside
Retail units, including food/drinks outlets
Public toilets (relocated from Cliffe Hill)
Disabled parking and bicycle storage
First floor
Flexible office space for small businesses
Subject to planning permission, work would get underway in winter with completion in late 2025.
These designs are subject to change as plans develop in partnership with local people.
A formal public consultation on the plans will take place in October 2024, including a drop-in event for local people to meet the team and ask questions.
The inspiration for the name has been taken from Stapleford’s historic F. Chambers & Company Limited Pencil Works factory which resided on Broad Oak Drive from 1915 until 1973. The company was the first to manufacture cosmetic pencils for Boots in 1931. While they sold their business in the 1990s, the Chambers’ family still produce pencils in Stapleford.
