Exploring Berewood and Wellington Park

A few photos I took during my recent exploration of the new housing developments.
Some mature trees have been left alone. The new school is in the background.

 

Looking towards Waterlooville through the Berewood Estate. St Georges church clock tower can be seen in the distance.

More homes on the Berewood estate. The drainage systems are found throughout the estate. Yep, the joys of moronic British 'political' boundaries means that these Waterlooville homes are in the boundaries of Winchester City Council 21 miles away, as opposed to Havant Borough Council 5.4 miles away.

Paths and roads have been created joining different parts of the developing areas. Many of the roads are currently blocked off until the development work is completed.

Another drainage system, new homes in the distance.

There is a bridge that connects Berewood with Wellington Park. Like many of the roads it is blocked off, although it is open to cyclists and pedestrians. The wood crash barrier is a nice feature and gets thumbs up here! Why can't all crash barriers look like this!

The stream as seen from the bridge.

Not all the Wellington Park homes look ugly brick boxes. These are boxes, but they have wood cladding. Why can't the whole estate look like this?

Berewood fantasy

So I believe the properties on the Berewood housing development are officially up for sale. Time to have a look at the rose tinted vision Bloor and the architects have about the Waterlooville area!

Here is an analysis of some points made in the marketing booklet for the new housing estate, published and distributed circa 22/06/2013. The development is part of the West of Waterlooville MDA.

Berewood Marketing Booklet (text samples)	Waterlooville Reality
Page 7: Berewood's Garden City will be somewhere our residents can enjoy a high quality and more sustainable way of life...	Garden City?? Since when has a housing estate ever been a garden city? The term garden city dates back to 1898, which amusingly reveals a lot about the true inspiration for Berewood. Instead of drawing inspiration from the real local architecture, mostly dating from 1930 onwards, inspiration has instead come from a Victorian 'movement', minus the coal chugging steam engines. Noble as the idea might be, building a 'garden city' on virgin agricultural land a few yards from a suburban sprawl isn't exactly what Ebenezer Howard had in mind. Indeed Berewood will never be self sufficient and will be a strange protusion on the side of Waterlooville. A quirk of council borders, because most of it will be outside of Waterlooville and Purbook council/political boundaries.
Page 10: Robert Adam has drawn inspiration from the architectural styles found in the surrounding villages; and says; " Each of the new homes will have their own identity and character, and local materials will be used where possible".	Not sure what properties Robert Adam actually looked at in the non-existent surrounding villages, but I don't think any of them were any where near Waterlooville. Unless 'inspiration' means looking through local history books with content predating 1920. Lets have a look at the real world... Purbrook: behind the sign, some lovely bungalows. Purbrook: post 1970s flats and some 1930s houses Waterlooville: a few hundred yards from the Berewood development, some typical flats, post 1970s Waterlooville: dual carriageways and plenty of suburban traffic: Waterlooville: 1970s social housing: Cowplain: the traditional architecture of Waterlooville and Cowplain, rows and rows of suburban bungalows. Miles and miles of post WWII bungalows, flats and detached houses.
Page 13: Nestled within beautiful countryside, just 8 miles from Portsmouth, Berewood boasts eco-friendly credentials, tranquil surroundings and a very special way of life, all within easy reach of London.	Normally when expressing distances between places, one uses the 'as the crow flies' or geodesic distance. eg. the direct distance. However in this case, the Bloor marketing people appear to have used Google or a car navigation unit and worked out the distance using the A3(M) and A27 as the route. Which is roughly an 8 mile journey, as long as you don't drive down to Southsea! The true distance from Portsmouth is about 4 miles 'as the crow flies'. Tranquil surroundings?? Well  I guess the fields on which Berewood is being built were once a bit tranquil, but I would hardly call the B21590 and Maurepaus Way tranquil! Waterlooville is a suburban post war sprawl, it has been for many decades. Easy reach of London?? It's 50+ miles away! You can't get there without burning a lot of carbon. Is that supposed to encourage environmentally friendly behaviour? There is no nearby train station within walking distance. You have a 30 minute bus ride to the station in Cosham and 45+ minute bus ride to Havant station. You could take a coach to London, but do you really want to do that everyday? One assumes of course that Bloor et al are not suggesting driving to London, creating more traffic, pollution and CO2 emissions. Some 25% of UK carbon emissions are due to road traffic. One minute Berewood is a 'Garden City', next it's a suburban satelite of London. The marketing appears to be confused (or maybe post-modern). Google map
Page 13: Ideally located close to the heart of Waterloovilles vibrant town centre. Berewood promises a great choice of local restaurants, independent shops and top performing schools.	I think anyone reading 'vibrant' in association with Waterlooville will laugh out loud. Read the many blog posts on this blog to see how 'vibrant' it is. If you like Macdonalds, Subway and Costas then you'll love the local restaurants. The only local restaurant of note that I can think of is the Shalimar. A great choice of independent shops? Here is a sample (minus the numerous big corporates):
Page 13: With picturesque villages of Purbrook, Blendworth, Cowplain, Lovedean, Clanfield, Catherington, Crookhorn, Deanmead, Hambledon, Horndean and Widley...	My advice is take a look at Google maps and streetview and judge for yourself. Can you see a picturesque village? Maybe Hambledon is still a village. Maybe even Clanfield. But Cowplain and Purbrook? Maybe Bloors author lives in Australia and has no internet connection?
Page 18: For a relaxed shopping trip, Waterlooville offers an excellent range of small independent stores.	This doesn't reflect reality. Anyone who has shopped in Waterlooville since the 1960s has seen nearly all independent shops close down, just like any other town centre. Long gone are (can't remember many of the names) the Baytree Bookshop, the art shop, Transatlantic Plastics, a number of independent shoe shops and an independent hardware shop (got any fork handles?). The fact is that most shops in Waterlooville are big corporates, including: Asda, Iceland, Waitrose, Brantano, Wickes, Wilkinson, Boots, WH Smith, Subway, Costa, Macdonalds, Carphone Warehouse and many others. That is why (along with internet retailing) we don't have many independent shops.

Berewood toy town takes shape

The Grainger/Bloor toy town is starting to take shape close to Waterlooville.

This alien project has been designed by  Architects in Winchester who base their designs on the fossil fuel burning past, the properties have fake chimneys and tiny windows.

The marketing hype states that the homes are inspired by small Hampshire towns.

What the marketing propaganda doesn't say is that in order to find one of these idealistic small Hampshire towns, you will have to take a trip in a time machine to visit Jane Austen in the 18th century.

Once upon a time Waterlooville looked like one of these towns from the past, that is until post war Britain needed to build thousands of houses in the area. The result is that the character of Waterlooville happens to be in the1950s, 1960s and later, not in the 18th century.

We do need to preserve buildings like Swiss Cottage, but we don't need fake historic buildings.

Swiss Cottage (1876)
more window real estate than
the 2013 Berewood homes

So Waterlooville has a toy/fantasy town being built on valuable farmland on the edges of the existing town and is disrespectful to the majority of the architecture in the area. When were Georgian buildings ever built using modern timber frame techniques?

But the fantasy nature of the buildings is just a part of the problem.

We need to reduce energy use and that means designing homes that capture as much energy from the environment as possible without the need for energy inputs from fossil fuels and grid connected renewable energy.

Yes we do need the grid and the large scale renewable energy projects to feed it. But low carbon life isn't about consumption for consumptions sake. The 'client' side of the system (homes and businesses) must be as efficient as possible, providing some energy from domestic renewable energy systems. The way forward is the use of elements of Passive solar design, a realist approach to property design that uses the natural energy around us to do as much of the work for us as possible.

It's time that the architectural and political ideology that is firmly rooted in the past, remains in the past, because the ageing pensioners that support it are not our future.


Some useful links:
http://www.selfbuild-central.co.uk/green-design-overview/saving-energy/energy-harvesting/passive-solar-design/
http://www.yougen.co.uk/blog-entry/2119/Heat+your+home+with+passive+solar+energy/
http://www.superhomes.org.uk/resources/passive-solar-design/
http://passivesolar.sustainablesources.com/
http://www.passivhaus.org.uk/
http://www.passivhaustrust.org.uk/

Grainger - Berewood development March 2013

Some panoramic views of the current work on the Grainger - West of Waterlooville MDA development (click on theimage to view the full size version):

The 'front' has been tidied up. Drainage is going to be an issue across the whole site, as can be seen from this front of house shot.

The back end of the devlopment is currently a very muddy building site. I guess the company is desperate to build the first show homes. There are new cycle and pedestrian paths/tracks that border the site.


The act of building on the site will of course have an impact on drainage. Roads and concrete have an impact on how effectively the land absorbs the water. The assumption is that the developers know what they are doing and have carefully followed genuine climate science advice about future flooding risks.

Road side drainage ditch. How long will these stay clear?

What plans does Winchester and Havant councils have to make sure all this drainage and flood mitigation infrastructure remain clear of rubbish, weeds and debris?