Joint award winner for best brownfield development
Round the island
This year, for the first time in this category, the judges decided that two regeneration schemes of brownfield land were of equal merit and should be recognised as joint award winners. One was the model regeneration of a once-derelict industrial area in a major city, Manchester (see pages 64-66). The other is this comprehensive redevelopment of a 150-acre derelict island that was formerly part of HMS Pembroke, the 420-acre Royal Naval Dockyard at Chatham, Kent, which closed in 1984.
Since its acquisition from the Ministry of Defence by English Partnerships, the dockyard has been known as Chatham Maritime. The Historic Dockyard Trust took over the 79-acre (32-hectare) part of the former dockyard that included the UK’s highest concentration of listed buildings and scheduled ancient monuments. This now provides jobs for 2,500 people in more than 100 small businesses, 70 shops, 1 million sq ft of offices, a 310-berth marina, nursery and primary schools, and the campus of the University of Greenwich at Medway, as well homes for some 400 people in a terrace of 12 four-storey Georgian houses formerly occupied by Naval officers and new houses and flats built by another homebuilder.
To turn St Mary’s Island into a residential community of 1,700 homes, a 50-50 public-private joint-venture company, Countryside Maritime Limited, was set up between Countryside Properties PLC and SEEDA, the South East England Development Agency. SEEDA was responsible for undertaking the decontamination of the site and the construction of the roads and services.
Housing development is taking place on 103 acres of the 150-acre island, and Medway Council was happy to use it to enable it to meet the Government’s 60-percent target for new housing on brownfield land. However, it was reluctant to see high-density development, with the result that the first low-density detached housing only achieved 12 dwellings per acre.
More recent use of three-storey houses and four-storey apartment blocks have raised the density to 16 dwellings per acre without any deterioration in the quality of the environment. About 850 new homes have been built, so the development is about 50 per cent complete.
Apart from new housing, St Mary’s Island has a 30-acre central park forming the backbone of the development, at the end of which is a community centre, doctors’ surgery and a primary school for 400 pupils. Throughout the residential areas, there are also small play areas and amenity spaces, and different parts of the development such as the Fishing Village, Ventura, Northshore, Victory Mews and the neighbourhood centre are linked by walkways and cycleways.
Sustainability is a key feature of the residential development, with the emphasis on energy efficiency and water conservation, not only by using materials such as renewable timber for cladding the house and apartment buildings, but in orienting them to shelter them from prevailing winds and maximising their exposure to the sun and natural light by the use of double-height windows. Low-emissivity glass is used in the double-glazing to minimise heat loss. Photovoltaic cells are used for solar water heating. Dual-flush cisterns are installed in the houses and apartments and A-rated kitchen appliances. Insulation ensures that new homes achieve Ecohome ratings of Good or Very Good.
Properties for sale on St Mary’s Island range from £150,000 to £325,000, and the provision of affordable social housing is currently about 12 per cent, but this may be increased in later phases. St Mary’s Island was commended in the inaugural World Wide Fund for Nature’s Sustainable New Homes Awards, and the development has also achieved CABE’s Building for Life Silver Standard. In March this year it was shortlisted for the Deputy Prime Minister’s Award for Sustainable Communities.
HomeBuilder: COUNTRYSIDE MARITIME LIMITED
(a joint venture between Countryside Properties PLC and SEEDA, the South East England Development Agency)
Countryside House, The Drive, Brentwood, Essex CM13 3AT
Tel 01277 260000 Fax 01277 690600
Contact: Lisa Hill, Marketing Manager
Email: lisa.hill@cpplc.com
Website: www.stmarysisland.uk.com
Architects: COUNTRYSIDE PROPERTIES’ ARCHITECTS
(Group Chief Architect, Trisha Gupta) working in association with OSP ARCHITECTURE (for Ventura)
Rosemount House, Rosemount Avenue, West Byfleet,
Surrey KT14 6LB
Tel 01932 352111 Fax 01932 353315
Email: surname@osparchitecture.com
Website: www.osparchitecture.com
and
PCKO ARCHITECTS (for The Fishing Village and Northshore)
Middlesex House, 130 College Road, Harrow,
Middlesex HA1 1BQ
Tel 020 8861 1444 Fax 020 8426 0851
Email: mail@pcko.co.uk
Website: www.pcko.co.uk
and
PRP ARCHITECTS
(for Victory Mew, surgery and community centre)
Ferry Works, Summer Road, Thames Ditton, Surrey KT7 0QJ
Tel 020 8339 3600 Fax 020 8339 3636
Email: prp@prparchitects.co.uk
Website: www.prparchitects.co.uk
