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Whitehill and Bordon: Development Update

How one town is replacing its departed garrison with one of the largest and most sustainable new housing developments.

It’s a bright sunny June day in 2015 and the people of Bordon in East Hampshire are out in force for a grand festival to say goodbye and thanks to the departing garrison. But while many people will have been sad to see it leave, it opened the way for a ground-breaking sustainable construction project. We spoke to James Blackburn of Carbon Green Consulting who is playing a key role in the development.

Whitehill and Bordon: Development Update

How one town is replacing its departed garrison with one of the largest and most sustainable new housing developments.

It’s a bright sunny June day in 2015 and the people of Bordon in East Hampshire are out in force for a grand festival to say goodbye and thanks to the departing garrison. But while many people will have been sad to see it leave, it opened the way for a ground-breaking sustainable construction project. We spoke to James Blackburn of Carbon Green Consulting who is playing a key role in the development.

The departure of the garrison left a gaping hole in Bordon. There had been a military presence in the town since 1903 and the army had formed a key part of the town’s identity. More importantly, it created an area where the garrison had stood in need of regeneration.

Working alongside the MOD, the Government set out to regenerate the area by building 2,500 new houses including a new town centre and two new schools. It was a major project, but one of the most important issues is how it complies with sustainability requirements.

“We’ve been involved with this project for four years now, since putting the sustainability strategy together,” says Blackburn. “We have now been asked to essentially implement the strategy and so we are involved in various elements of that strategy currently on Phase 1, and the Town Centre Phase 1 to deliver it.”

The project currently aims to be up and running by 2028, but that has moved from 2025, with some parts of the project moving more quickly than others.

It is split into two distinct phases. Phase 1 comprises residential and town centre goals. It involves 170 residential units and 190 town centre units. While the residential project is well underway, phase one of the town centre has not happened yet.

Carbon Green Consulting have been asked to deliver on the project’s ambitious sustainability objectives. These involved putting together a sustainability strategy, which is now called the Green Measures Strategy which governs every aspect of this project.

“The strategy involves very broad sustainability measures as well as specific ones for buildings,” says Blackburn. “From a building perspective, the strategy suggested various elemental u-values, so high efficiency buildings, specific heating, ventilation, air conditioning strategies potentially across the site to reduce the CO2 emissions. So, there were certain basic set points.”

The project also has a much broader sustainability angle which focuses on a set of wider concerns, such as how the site interacts with green spaces around it, the community and what role it will have in the wider economy of the town. The planners hope this will have a positive impact both in the construction phase and once it is up and running.

“So, in the building phase obviously there were going to be jobs available for builders and the industries around that, and then post the building stage how the community was going to develop.”

They are also conducting post occupancy analysis of buildings and a sports pavilion from the Phase One stage. This includes the calculations from the design stage which demonstrate how it adheres to building regulations and CO2 emissions targets with its actual as-built performance. For this they are using advanced equipment to monitor a range of parameters.

“We’ll put monitoring equipment, for instance, with CO2 for humidity, for heat. We can measure how people are feeling comfort within that building, how it performs in that respect,” he says. “We’ll do thermographic readings to see if there are any leaks within that building. We’ll do occupancy surveys.”

Renewable energies

They are now moving into the planning stage of Phase 2 which, he says, will involve a further 190 units. They have done an energy statement for that phase and are also in the process of putting in place a photovoltaic survey to see where they can optimise photovoltaic erase on the site.

The site comes with finance from the MoD to develop various sustainability initiatives on of which, is designed to deliver 70% of the new homes with photovoltaics on their roofs. 

These panels, which generate and supply electricity to the building, are one of the best and most rapidly advancing renewable energy solutions on the market. They are seen as offering an easily applicable and relatively affordable solution which can reduce the amount of energy a new development such as this will draw from the national grid, help individual households to reduce their personal carbon footprints and, in some cases, generate sufficient excess energy which can then be sold back to the national grid. Small wonder solar power is the fastest growing source of energy in the world.

This is an enormous project, but it plays a key role in showing how the government can regenerate areas and increase the housing stock, all while meeting their more demanding emissions guidelines. Balancing these conflicting goals will be difficult, but it’s a challenge construction companies will have to meet.

Demand for sustainable solutions in construction. Everyone – governments, the press and the public – want to see sustainability embedded in all areas of a project from the materials being used to the energy efficiency of buildings and even the impact on the wider economy. Construction companies will have to balance a growing number of demands. Complying with stricter regulations is becoming more challenging, but that doesn’t mean these projects can’t be successful.

The success of this regeneration project shows it is more than possible to include sustainability as a key element of new developments. As for CGC, this has been a major project and a serious undertaking. “It’s definitely a big project for us: 2,500 houses,” he says. “To be involved in that is fantastic. We’re hoping to get more similar projects, because we’ve obviously had some good experiences from delivering what we’ve delivered with Bordon.”

The departure of the garrison left a gaping hole in Bordon. There had been a military presence in the town since 1903 and the army had formed a key part of the town’s identity. More importantly, it created an area where the garrison had stood in need of regeneration.

Working alongside the MOD, the Government set out to regenerate the area by building 2,500 new houses including a new town centre and two new schools. It was a major project, but one of the most important issues is how it complies with sustainability requirements.

“We’ve been involved with this project for four years now, since putting the sustainability strategy together,” says Blackburn. “We have now been asked to essentially implement the strategy and so we are involved in various elements of that strategy currently on Phase 1, and the Town Centre Phase 1 to deliver it.”

The project currently aims to be up and running by 2028, but that has moved from 2025, with some parts of the project moving more quickly than others.

It is split into two distinct phases. Phase 1 comprises residential and town centre goals. It involves 170 residential units and 190 town centre units. While the residential project is well underway, phase one of the town centre has not happened yet.

Carbon Green Consulting have been asked to deliver on the project’s ambitious sustainability objectives. These involved putting together a sustainability strategy, which is now called the Green Measures Strategy which governs every aspect of this project.

“The strategy involves very broad sustainability measures as well as specific ones for buildings,” says Blackburn. “From a building perspective, the strategy suggested various elemental u-values, so high efficiency buildings, specific heating, ventilation, air conditioning strategies potentially across the site to reduce the CO2 emissions. So, there were certain basic set points.”

The project also has a much broader sustainability angle which focuses on a set of wider concerns, such as how the site interacts with green spaces around it, the community and what role it will have in the wider economy of the town. The planners hope this will have a positive impact both in the construction phase and once it is up and running.

“So, in the building phase obviously there were going to be jobs available for builders and the industries around that, and then post the building stage how the community was going to develop.”

They are also conducting post occupancy analysis of buildings and a sports pavilion from the Phase One stage. This includes the calculations from the design stage which demonstrate how it adheres to building regulations and CO2 emissions targets with its actual as-built performance. For this they are using advanced equipment to monitor a range of parameters.

“We’ll put monitoring equipment, for instance, with CO2 for humidity, for heat. We can measure how people are feeling comfort within that building, how it performs in that respect,” he says. “We’ll do thermographic readings to see if there are any leaks within that building. We’ll do occupancy surveys.”

Renewable energies

They are now moving into the planning stage of Phase 2 which, he says, will involve a further 190 units. They have done an energy statement for that phase and are also in the process of putting in place a photovoltaic survey to see where they can optimise photovoltaic erase on the site.

The site comes with finance from the MoD to develop various sustainability initiatives on of which, is designed to deliver 70% of the new homes with photovoltaics on their roofs. 

These panels, which generate and supply electricity to the building, are one of the best and most rapidly advancing renewable energy solutions on the market. They are seen as offering an easily applicable and relatively affordable solution which can reduce the amount of energy a new development such as this will draw from the national grid, help individual households to reduce their personal carbon footprints and, in some cases, generate sufficient excess energy which can then be sold back to the national grid. Small wonder solar power is the fastest growing source of energy in the world.

This is an enormous project, but it plays a key role in showing how the government can regenerate areas and increase the housing stock, all while meeting their more demanding emissions guidelines. Balancing these conflicting goals will be difficult, but it’s a challenge construction companies will have to meet.

Demand for sustainable solutions in construction. Everyone – governments, the press and the public – want to see sustainability embedded in all areas of a project from the materials being used to the energy efficiency of buildings and even the impact on the wider economy. Construction companies will have to balance a growing number of demands. Complying with stricter regulations is becoming more challenging, but that doesn’t mean these projects can’t be successful.

The success of this regeneration project shows it is more than possible to include sustainability as a key element of new developments. As for CGC, this has been a major project and a serious undertaking. “It’s definitely a big project for us: 2,500 houses,” he says. “To be involved in that is fantastic. We’re hoping to get more similar projects, because we’ve obviously had some good experiences from delivering what we’ve delivered with Bordon.”

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