Greengage provided sustainability, energy, biodiversity and EIA services and support for this community-centred redevelopment of a 1960s housing estate.
The Tustin Estate is a community-centred redevelopment of a 1960s housing estate located to the north of the Old Kent Road and west of Ilderton Road. It’s made up of three towers and six low-rise blocks, Pilgrims Way Primary School and several businesses fronting onto Old Kent Road.
In March 2021, residents voted in favour of demolishing and rebuilding the low-rise buildings in a residents’ ballot. The masterplan comprises 690 homes, including both council homes (with 68% affordable – including shared equity, key worker, and over 55s accommodation) and homes for private sale. There will also be a replacement school building, new commercial spaces, and a new park. All existing residents will be able to move to a new council home in the first phase of the scheme.
Greengage provided sustainability, energy, biodiversity, and EIA services for the project.
Throughout the design process Greengage supported the close engagement and collaboration with the existing residents with energy efficiency and sustainability being integral points in the Tustin Residents Manifesto that formed a key part of the project brief. Alongside this, co-design workshops were held with residents and students to discuss sustainability features such as green roofs, renewable energy production on site, safeguarding and enhancing biodiversity on site.
The scheme was designed with a strong sustainability strategy from the early stages which included energy efficiency, overheating mitigation, whole-life carbon reduction, circular economy strategy and BREEAM certification.
Greengage worked with the design team to develop the energy strategy for Phase 1 of the redevelopment, which is estimated to reduce regulated operational CO2 emissions by 94%, when compared to Building Regulations, significantly exceeding planning requirements (35%). Measures to achieve this performance include an efficient building envelope, mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR), connection to the SELCHP district heating network and maximised renewable energy generation with PV on roofs. Additionally, the design has looked to balance energy efficiency and overheating with measures such as solar control glazing, shading elements like balconies and external public corridors, and MVHR with summer bypass.
Greengage undertook whole-life carbon calculations and reviewed potential carbon reduction measures with the project team. Through this, a c.6% saving in embodied carbon (A1-A5) was achieved through using concrete with 50% GGBS cement replacement in the substructure. The scheme design also incorporated circular economy principles and aspirations through several strategies. These included material efficiencies, such as reducing slab thicknesses to reduce concrete volume; standardised or pre-fabricated elements such as balconies that reduce on-site waste; and reuse and recycling of construction and demolition waste, for example through using concrete from the existing buildings first as a piling mat and then as aggregate for hard landscaping, and also consideration of a community re-use scheme for the fixtures and fittings that will be removed from existing buildings.
Furthermore, the primary school and the commercial spaces of the redevelopment were designed to meet BREEAM Excellent standards.
In our role as EIA co-ordinators, Greengage managed a team of technical consultants covering 12 different topic areas including townscape and visual impact, wind, and air quality. Many of the environmental topics being assessed needed to feed back into the ongoing design development, ensuring that where potential impacts had been identified, these were minimised through design iteration. As EIA co-ordinators, Greengage produced a climate change and greenhouse gas EIA assessment which ensured maximising the sustainability of the development was at the heart of the EIA process.
Greengage worked with the design team to ensure that the proposals maximised biodiversity value of the site whilst also providing health and well-being benefits for current and future residents. Green Infrastructure has been planned at a side wide level with connections and linkages provided into existing green spaces in the locality. The proposed development incorporates native tree and shrub planting, understorey planting, rain gardens, eco-buffers, feature planting and sensory planting. The landscaping proposals will deliver a 29.10% net gain in biodiversity.
