Derby Street

Derby Street delivers the ambitions of the Hilltown Physical Regeneration Framework, renewing a key site through the creation of 162 new homes for Dundee City Council and Hillcrest Housing Association.

The housing-led regeneration project restores the site previously occupied by twin multistorey blocks which had become some of the least desirable homes in the city.

The urban approach reinstates historic street patterns with a development of family sized houses, tenemental flats, wheelchair accessible homes and supported housing. This approach to typology creates a new neighbourhood that supports a mixed and intergenerational community rooted in the heart of the Hilltown.

At the centre of the development is a new street, named to commemorate Dundee suffragette Ethel Moorhead, located where Russell Street once existed, a cobbled street with tenements and cottages. This street was well remembered by many locals despite being lost in the 1970s development. Its reinstatement is a key aspect of the regeneration of the area. Here the heritage of the city is celebrated with a series of public artworks.

New tenemental housing along Strathmartine Road varies in height along the street, mimicking the buildings opposite where tenements sit alongside historic cottages.
Buildings along Derby Street are arranged around tree lined spaces with a smaller scale to reflect their neighbours. This quieter pedestrian route links a series of community facilities including the nearby church and school within the wider neighbourhood.

Derby Street delivers a broad range of house types to meet a wide range of housing needs. This approach, delivering family homes alongside a mix of flat types and housing for people with disabilities and supported living needs, seeks to create a vibrant intergenerational community that represents a more sustainable than the approach of the homogeneity of the multi-storey blocks they’ve replaced.

Rooting people in well-loved places, in the heart of existing neighbourhoods, supports communities to live locally and creates the conditions for wider economic regeneration of high streets like Strathmartine Road. Homes are located close to existing community assets and services, such as schools, library, shops in addition to having excellent connections into the city centre by public transport. This approach creates the conditions for places and homes that are intrinsically sustainable beyond the simple calculation of u-values and technologies.

That said, Derby Street has been designed and delivered to meet the contemporary building standards for energy, providing well insulated, warm and efficient homes for residents.