Property Week Winner 2020 Developer of the Year

Monthly Review: April

Welcome back to our monthly review. We hope everyone is coping ok after our first official month in lockdown/isolation. April has been a quieter month than usual but we still have positive news to share.

Our highlight of the month was the reveal of the digital release of the Benedicts Gate poetry wall. The poem was created by our competition winner, Jenny Pagdin. The poem “Searching for the Sisters of the Gated City”, celebrates Norwich as a City of Literature and women across the ages. The poem will feature the names of all the 12 historic gates of Norwich Old Town which will be etched onto the exterior of our new student accommodation later this year. We were very excited to see the finished poem and look forward to the local community enjoying it as well. To keep up to date with Benedicts Gate, follow them on twitter and Instagram @benedictsgate

Digital Layout of Poem

Our number one priority is keeping everyone safe, which is why our project manager from RPS, Liz Brown has been getting up at 4.30am to complete her site visit in Sheffield before the contractors from Kier arrive. She kindly made time to bring us a small video of the progress at Beton House and how the team are meeting the social distancing guidelines. To keep up to date with Beton House, follow them on twitter and Instagram @betonhouse_hfs

Keeping with our Park Hill scheme, our partners PhotoNorth and Homes for Students have agreed to extend the deadline for entries to our student photography competition. The deadline was looming on 1st May but we decided to extend in these strange times. We are looking forward to seeing what the inventive students of Sheffield will come up with and will have an exhibition in one form or another as soon as we can. But in the meantime the main priority is for everyone to stay safe.

Free Photography Competition

We also had some positive news from our associates at Brompton Bikes who have been helping out the NHS in these trying times by offering free transport on their folding bikes. We are very proud to have worked with Brompton on various Alumno schemes to provide more environmentally friendly methods of transport around our schemes.

NHS staff with Brompton bikes

We end the month with the launch of our #ThrowbackThursday 6 week campaign featuring the many different poems we have commissioned over the years. Our first feature is from Jacob Polley, his poem “Salted Paper Prints” was inspired by St Andrews contribution to the birth of photography. Read all about here:  http://alumnogroup.com/alumno-poetry-commissions-part-1/

Poetry on benches at St Andrews

We want to take this time to also say thank you to all the NHS Staff, Carers and all front line workers who are doing an amazing job. Stay safe everyone. From the Alumno Team