Conservative Coalition continue down the brown path

Bad, but probably predictable news today. The Conservative dominated coalition government lifted restrictions on parking charges and the number of parking spaces allowed on new housing developments.
The restrictions were originally planned to encourage people to use their cars less and a lot of supporting work had resulted in progress being made, along with a gradual change in attitude.

Without central government restrictions developers can re-submit their plans and increase the number of parking spaces, plus possibly reducing the amount of green space. Councils will be powerless to reject any revised plans unless they are given powers to do so. It is doubtful that the 'localism' (another piece of badly named legislation, in which the name has been hijacked from the green movement) bill will give councils the powers.

It will be worthwhile keeping an eye on the Newlands development to see what happens there.
The Labour government weren't heroes when it came to essential changes for greening the country, however this announcement is a backwards step and in the name of political ideology, fails to establish a culture that is green and environmentally sustainable.

Some tasks have to be done, no matter what your politics are, greening human behaviour is one of them. This unfortunately means that political ideals may have to be abandoned (in this case the Conservative ideology of a smaller central government role). This isn't unique to the 'right', the 'left' also need to make sacrifices regarding political ideology.

It is of no surprise that the person behind this appears to be Eric Pickles, although one assumes it is approved by others in the coalition. The Dickensian character appears to be behind most of the moves in the current government to increase pollution and a prime driver of ideological policies that ignore climate change and other green issues.

Newlands designs look as bland as predicted

Artists impressions of the Newlands homes have appeared in todays 'The News', the local Portsmouth newspaper.

As feared the designs are bland and look like modified council houses that can be found over at Leigh Park, which ironically is what councillor Gwen Blackett didn't want. Having looked at the artists impression the homes look like they have small windows, which will mean a greater dependency on non passive heating systems. Plenty of sunlight coming into the home and substantially thick or insulated walls are what are required to reduce the need for heating using fuels, electricity etc.
This is achieved by appropriate orientation of every home and abandoning traditional street layouts.

At a time when we need a real commitment to cutting carbon emissions and should be building homes that will be around for over hundred years and have a minimum carbon impact, the old school are dominating locally with ridiculously dated and inappropriate designs.

Some basic information about passive design:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_solar_building_design

An example:
http://www.lowenergyhouse.com/low-energy-architecture-sw.html

I did post something about this a few months ago, however the post was hijacked by 'interested' parties making comments, a lot of the visits to this blog at the time were from outside Waterlooville, many from the London area and from locations that had not previously visited the blog. Once the interest died down, the traffic from those locations trailed off. I let readers draw their own conclusions from that information.

Newlands redesign

The latest news about the Newlands development suggests that the homes will be designed to a pseudo neo-classic specification by an architect that has connections with the Prince of Wales. The Prince is famous for his Poundbury town. However it is extremely doubtful that the Newlands development will be anything like Poundbury. The Prince of Wales has done many good things and his views about agriculture are good, but he doesn't have a clue about architecture. Poundbury may have some context in Dorset, but it would be ridiculous to build anything like it next door to the existing buildings of Waterlooville.

One thing to consider is what will happen to the Georgian or Edwardian facade of the Newlands houses in the future, once they have exchanged hands a few times. These buildings will not be listed and will have the minimal protection from alterations like any other building in the borough. This basically means that the architects vision of nice neat homes will eventually be destroyed when people start building plastic porches at the front, stick a satellite dish on the roof and a plastic conservatory in the back garden.

Waterlooville is not an area that is now rich in Georgian, Victorian or Edwardian architecture. It was once, but that has all either been demolished or extensively re-adapted and extended for modern use.
Yes there are the remains of Victorian/Georgian homes and commercial buildings in Waterlooville town centre, but you have to look at the top floors of the shops to see the nature of the original buildings, at ground level they are modern shops.  The vast majority of homes were built between the 1930s and 1970s. That period is the 'traditional' architecture of the area.

So the real choices for architecture have to be of that period or something completely new, not some fantasy vision that dates back to the Napoleonic or Crimean wars.

There is of course an alternative, Newlands could become a theme park or a gated community like Celebration in the USA of which much amusement and many TV documentaries are made. Celebration has strict rules about what colours can be used on homes and the community has an unelected town manager. With such strict rules and corporate management, Newlands could be kept like the architect designed it to be.

What will Waterlooville get?

Most likely standard box houses with token features that suggest some historical context, the windows will probably be plastic framed and the sandstone cornices will probably be replaced with plastic or concrete equivalents.  Yes it will satisfy some today, but it will likely ruin Waterloovilles image for the next hundred years, just like Waterloovilles town centre was ruined in the 1950s and 1960s.
Maybe if the area hadn't been massively developed in 50s/60s into a suburbia and the old Victorian/Georgian village of Waterlooville still existed, then just maybe the Newlands redesign would work. The reality though is far from that ludicrous ideological vision.

What does Waterlooville need?

The area desperately needs property that is built for the context of climate change and environmental sustainability. To do this, modern understanding of low energy construction, natural convection and the use of natural solar heating/cooling have to be built into the design of a building, traditional design does not fulfil that criteria. Any environmentally sustainable property will probably look different to anything built in the past if this essential criteria is met.

In fact the Newlands properties may contribute to their own demise because current building standards are not stringent enough to sufficiently reduce carbon emissions.

Newlands Alert!

In July Grainger will be showing off their latest plans for the Newlands West of Waterlooville MDA housing development, they are asking for opinions from the public.

Times and Place:

Waterlooville Community Centre
Friday 9th July, 1.30pm - 7.30pm
Saturday 10th July, 10am - 3pm

The focus will be on Phase 1 and the details of the design of this phase.

Grainger head of sustainability wins compensation

It is well known that Grainger are responsible for the Newlands development of 2,000 homes, a part of the West of Waterlooville MDA. However it is less well known that Graingers head of sustainability had been sacked by the company for being green and doing his job! Tim Nicholson (the advisor) has recently won his battle with Grainger and was awarded a large sum of money by the courts. The exact amount is unclear, media reports vary from £50,000 to £750,000.

The first stage of his battle was to get the legal establishment to accept that being sacked for being green could actually be a court case. Having won that battle, he then had to prove his case.

This indicates that Grainger aren't as green as they would like people to think they are. It will be interesting to see how they market the West of Waterlooville MDA in the future.

The case also has implications for other employees who have green views and are discriminated against, in their jobs or work enviroment.

How the Grainger development looks today

I thought I would take some photos from the footpath through the proposed Grainger (West of Waterlooville MDA) site. Note the descriptions are based on my own interpretation of the Grainger plans and the location that the photo was taken:

This photo shows the view at the corner of the allotments. According to the latest proposal the allotments will remain, most of the land in the photo will be built on though. There will be buildings that run along the the hedge which defines the allotment border.


This image shows 'plant farm' which will remain, most of the space in the photo should remain 'green' space with no building. The hedgerows and trees should remain. There will be a lot of building behind the farm.


In this shot the foreground should remain green space, but looking back to the London road, all that space will be built on. The hedge in the left of the photo defines the allotment boundary. There will be buildings in front of the allotment.


This shot is looking towards Hambledon road and the industrial estate. There will be a lot of buildings in the distance, but the foreground should remain green space. To the right, there will also be some building (the allotment boundary).

Newlands development - consultation

Lots of stuff to write about! But the first post is about the ongoing saga of the West of Waterlooville MDA. As reported in a previous post, Grainger are extending their part of the MDA to include 1,000 more homes.

They are launching a web site on the same day that they are presenting the new plans at the Waterlooville Community Centre on the 13th November. At the moment the web site just has a splash screen, but on the 13th the site will become active and an online consultation form will be published.

It is important that Waterlooville folk participate in the consultation to get the best results. However it should be noted that this appears to be a commercial consultation carried out by Grainger for their own purposes and not a statutory one conducted by the council
Grainger - Newlands Hampshire Consultation web site

Grainger to be challenged in court

The company behind the biggest part of the West of Waterlooville MDA will be challenged in court over the sacking of its head of sustainability. Tim Nicholson has won a court battle that now allows him to challenge his dismissal. He claims that he was sacked for his views about anthropogenic climate change and the science behind it.

Hopefully the court case could reveal something about attitudes in the building industry. One wonders what exactly is confirmed in the mind of the Grainger corporate affairs spokesperson mentioned in the BBC article??

Winchester dumps another 1000 homes on Waterlooville

Grainger Plc is submitting its ideas to the public for 1000 homes in addition to the existing homes planned in the West of Waterlooville MDA. The plans will be on display at the Waterlooville Community Centre on 13th and 14th November. This isn't a planning application consultation, rather a preview of what Grainger are proposing. However opinions expressed by the public may influence Graingers eventual application, so it is important that people make their voices heard.

A halt to the home building

Having reported that Grainger had decided to downgrade the number of homes it intended to build in the West of Waterlooville MDA plan from 1000s of homes to under 200. The company is now reported to have abandoned the idea of building any homes at all in the immediate future.

This is backed up by the complete removal of the portable cabins and digging hardware from near the roundabout. It appears they are not going to be returning soon, as the site is completely deserted. They did however finish building the roundabout, although that took a ridiculously long time as the company seemed to drag its feet. George Hollingbery capitalised today by appearing on BBC news and indirectly suggested he was the person to stop it.

Bizarrely the BBC said the development was supposed to be the biggest development of green housing in the South. They obviously hadn't checked the pathetic green specifications being used by the developers. As stated here in an earlier post, the fact there will be delays in developement, means that by the time the housing market picks up, far tougher green building specs will be in place. Given that the rampant financial gambling of the last decade will lead to tougher lending policies, then the housing market is unlikely to be anything like we have just seen. It will be much more restricted and conservative.

No specific updates about Taylor Wimpey who had people working on their site yesterday. What must be remembered is that both companies still own the land and can apply for new applications to build there in the future. The only thing that will save us from future house building is a major change in policy from central government, or the companies sell or lease the land for agriculture use. Now the land is in the hands of developers it will be a miracle if they do not eventually develop the land, only government intervention is likely to stop them

Grainger downgrades Waterlooville MDA

The local paper has reported that Grainger is now going to build 180 homes on the farm land near Waterlooville, instead of the 1,500 or so they planned.

However this may not be as good as it first seems. Firstly they seem to state that this smaller scale project is purely while the market is in such a poor state, or in other words when it picks up, they will build more homes.

The other issue is that the smaller number of homes means that the 'public' buildings and infrastructure won't be built and any development will now be piecemeal.

But on the positive side, by the time the market does pick up (we are in a depression, don't delude yourself that this is a little recession!), the environmental standards for building will be much higher. So hopefully if the 1,500 homes are built eventually, then they will be of a higher eco standard.

All in all though, it would be best if the land remained green.

West of Waterlooville MDA - Portable town

Despite the 'Credit Crunch' and a down turn in the property market, Grainger continues with the devastation of Waterlooville green farm land and habitat.

Construction of a portable cabin site base is ruining the view we once had. Close by is the site entrance where vehicles going in and out of the site will hold up traffic in the Waterlooville area causing greater emissions than we already have. A few months ago the muddy mess in the foreground was green land