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?

New flats on the Swiss Cottage site

New low rent flats are being built on the Swiss Cottage site. Three storey timber frame construction from what I can make out. Is this being done on the cheap? I assume there will be a brick skin?

Robert Llewellyn talks about Passivhaus (Low Energy Homes)

Something that this government and large developers say would be to expensive, which is a lie of course especially in the context of long term economics and damages caused by Anthropogenic Climate Change.

Wellington Park - Urban Park Project

A nice example of Pinus Pylonus behind the Urban Park Project sign.

There has been a lot of tree and shrub planting next to the Wellington Park housing development recently. This magnificent Pinus Pylonus is near the road and I managed to take this superb photo while the Sun was out. This isn't the tallest I have seen, but it is a good specimen for the area and it's great that the council and developers decided to keep it. You can see to the rear and right of the photo an area of shrubs has been planted.

More homes on Taylor Wimpey site

A failure of Taylor Wimpey and Havant Borough Council to create a hybrid and sustainable development has led to HBC councillors agreeing that no empoyment properties (other than shops) will be built at Wellington Park. Instead HBC councillors have approved the building of more homes and the councillors say there will be employment at the Dunsbury Hill Farm development.

It appears that developers and councillors are forcing the unsustainable developments of the past onto us today, they put little effort into creating new sustainable developments and instead fall back onto the idea of large housing estates built miles from any work place. Thus people are forced to drive to work which in turn requires the upgrading of unsustainable infrastructure to make it work.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-27442575

UK Biodiversity Offsetting - a modern Indian Appropriations Act

United States of America 1851

From the 17th century, European colonists had mixed relations with the native population of North America. By the late 18th century there were 13 British colonies and over 2 million colonists occupying land that was once a haven for the native people and native species. As land was grabbed, towns and cities grew and many battles took place between natives and the growing population of colonists.

Biodiversity was attacked on all fronts, complete species were sometimes wiped out (Passenger Pigeon) or very nearly wiped out (Bison). The land grab resulted in failing relations with numerous tribes and in 1851 President Grant pursued a policy (The Indian Appropriations Act) of moving tribes from their ancestral lands to plots of land called reservations, whilst at the same time employing Christians to 'educate' the tribes.
Encroaching land development by the colonists had pushed native people to the margins.


England 2013

Biodiversity Offsetting is presented as a 'solution' to resolving the conflict between land development and wildlife habitat. The reality of the 'Biodiversity Offsetting' project is the typical one sided view that the entity with the most power can pretty much do what they like. We have always taken land and done what we like with it, so what is new about Biodiversity Offsetting?

Basically nothing. It's a red herring, it's the same old desires of hard line modern economics and vote grabbing, dressed up as a new 'green' deal.

Owen Paterson won't tell you that you can't have a semi-detached dream home because it will destroy a water voles habitat, he knows you won't vote for him again if he said that. He won't tell you that your home needs to be knocked down to make way for higher density homes, that won't win votes.
What he will tell you is what you want to hear.
Don't worry, it's the water vole that will have his or her home demolished, the water vole will be forcibly captured and moved to a new reservation.

And we all know how successful reservations were for the American tribes.

http://saveourwoods.co.uk/biodiversity-offsetting-2/ngo-concern-as-uk-government-releases-its-consultation-on-biodiversity-offsetting/
http://saveourwoods.co.uk/articles/sustainable-developmentgreen-economy/biodiversity-offsetting-in-uk-one-year-on-not-looking-good/
http://www.rspb.org.uk/news/352869-plans-to-offset-damage-to-wildlife-must-not-become-a-licence-to-trash

Richard Rodgers house built in a day

It's time to move on.

Whether you like the design or not, is neither here nor there. You can't help but admire the fact that the idea would help solve a lot of problems in the UK. The system was used to build the London Olympics 2012 Velodrome.




Richard Rodgers Homeshell
Homeshell in the RA Courtyard
Building Design Online

Tokar Street Eco House

I Visited Portsmouth City Councils 'eco home' this week in Tokar Street, Southsea. The house is a pre 1900 'two up two down' terrace house, typical in much of Portsmouth and built when insulation was non-existent.

Before a new tenant moved into the property the council decided to upgrade it to modern eco standards. For various periods this week the council have a few officers in the house and are welcoming visitors to have a look around.

So I took the opportunity to take a peek.
My brother shared a similar house when he was a student and there isn't a lot of room in those terraced homes. Without any modern extentions, you have two rooms on the ground floor and two up, with a tiny staircase between the two. Many have bathrooms and kitchens on the ground floor in extentions to the rear.
This house fitted that pattern, with core new eco additions: (information from a sheet handed out at the home):

Wall Insulation	Thick 70mm internal wall insulation on all external walls.
Floor Insulation	180mm of insulation held in place by netting between joists and 125mm insulation on concrete floors.
Loft Insulation	300mm insulation between floor joists, 70mm fitted to roof joists
Windows	A rated.
Photovoltaic panels	Produces about 1776kwh per year.
Condensing Boiler	About 91% efficient.
Heat recovery ventilation	Heat exchanger prevents warm air escaping and cold air getting in, whilst providing ventilation.

Southampton University will be monitoring the house when a new family move in and the energy saving results will be compared with other similar homes in the street that have not been modified.

The project is impressive and of course is about doing what you can with an existing building that is over 100 years old.

But if you were starting from scratch you wouldn't design new buildings like this. Sooooo.... why on Earth are we building fake Victorian/Georgian homes at the Berewood estate?

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/

Bedroom tax and spare bedrooms

Today anyone who has no option but to live in 'social' housing will have their housing benefit restricted if they have any spare bedrooms. The idea is to make sure housing is used more effectively, this is because of a shortage in housing and of course to cut costs.

Meanwhile, many home owners in Havant Borough live in homes with spare bedrooms and they get discounted council tax, pensions and welfare benefits, yet they will be unaffected by this reform. Whilst this is happening and those home owners rooms remain unused, the government have changed planning law so that it is likely that more green fields will be built on.

There isn't really a problem with getting people to live more efficiently, but it is wrong to use a specific group as scapegoats (and blame previous governments for having to do it). Many people in social housing have actually worked hard and paid taxes all their life, thus partly paying for the education and health bills of many of those that own their homes and who may be supporting these changes.

Yes, if you want to move people in housing around, then do it sensibly, but don't leave out the millions of home owners that are living off the benefits and subsidies that past generations contributed to and policies of previous governments that aided home owners. Many home owners have homes because past subsidies from tax payers helped them there (including tax payers in social housing). For example if a home owner is single and living in an empty house, then they are a burden on society because they are using valuable land. If a home isn't fully utilised then it should be 'taxed', it shouldn't matter if it is social or privately owned housing.

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?

Hambledon Parade 2007 to 2013

Some then and now photos:

The hedgerow gone and replaced with flats. Some new bollards installed at the Sunnymead Drive entrance to Hambledon Parade.

Just before the work started on Wellington Park, I took some photos from within the fields.
The 2013 photo here is an approximation of where I was standing in 2007. I might have been further back from the pylons in 2007, or the lens on the older camera gave a wider angle view in 2007.

If I was further back from the pylons, then where I was standing in 2007 is now inside one of the ground floor flats.

Waterloovilles fields about to be saved?

It's good news to see that the House of Commons Environmental Audit select committee has recommended that greenfield developments pushed forward by the government should be slowed down or halted completely. With a bit of luck and a building industry in serious trouble, our fields will remain.

Local Government Chronicle
Guardian