Some positive activity around Waterlooville?

Waterlooville is struggling to survive as a retail and business area, but it is good to see three shops openning, two in Waterlooville centre and one opposite Hambledon Parade.

The two in Waterlooville are food/cafe units. One is a bakery/cafe selling Cornish pasties, cakes and drinks, the other is still being kitted out, but it looks like it will be a Pizza cafe of some sort.

Meanwhile, at Hambledon Parade the empty shops under the new Wellington Park flats appears to be acquiring a Premier convenience store. However given there are two existing convenience stores (Mace and McColls) in Hambledon Parade itself, it looks like something has got to 'give' and someone is going to lose out.

The other issue of course is that we have plenty of cafes and food stores already!

Oh and charity shops.

I'll have pictures and other details later.

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.

Taylor Wimpey on tonights CH4 Dispatches

Woh!

Well worth watching. New houses with no loft or wall insulation!
Ill fitted doors, gaps between floor and skirting boards.
Wrongly fitted air bricks.

Appalling workmanship across the building industry.

Ooh and guess what, this coincides with a cut in government red tape in the last 5 years.
Surprise, surprise, commercial companies can't be trusted to regulated themselves!

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/

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

Waterlooville the building site

As previously mentioned, Waterlooville has been turned into a big building site this year. Here are some of the other projects...

The old BAe/Marconi office block has almost completely gone, after a number of weeks of demolition work. Thankfully this time it looks like the trees will survive??
Let's not forget (like we don't forget those that fell in wars) that the land behind that fence was once farm land.

Hambledon parade is also getting a makeover, with new shops being built on the opposite side of Hambledon road on the Taylor Wimpey Wellington Park development.
Again the land where the new shops are being built was once farm land, another fallen victim.
More concrete!

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.

Dukes Meadow 2007 to 2012

The Taylor Wimpey development at Dukes Meadow is nearly completed with the 'prison block' flats dominating the view from Hambledon Road.

Although in principle there is nothing wrong with blocks of flats, I think most people aren't impressed by the cost cutting styling of the flats lining the Hambledon Road.

The initial blocks of flats were skinned with bricks, but later blocks were just skimmed with cement and then painted.

This video slide show has been put together using photos  taken over a period of 5 years and documents the changes since 2007. The slides are accompanied by an audio soundtrack.

In 1979 Robert Crumb developed a cartoon sequence called 'A Short History Of America' , I guess
this pays homage to it.

Havant Borough Councils plans will probably increase allergies in the community

Trees felled in Waterlooville

Interesting research in Finland published in PNAS, shows that a lack of exposure to nature and biodiversity increases the number of allergies and chronic inflammatory diseases in the community.

Scientists studied groups of teenagers living in urban and rural environments and discovered the rural teenagers had more beneficial bacteria on their skin.

This basically translates to Havant Borough Councils 'open for business' plans resulting in higher health bills and other costs for future generations. The more our councillors vote through plans for businesses and homes, the more allergies and other illnesses we will see in the community.

We need our biodiversity and green spaces. It's interesting just how symbiotic we are with nature, we can't do without it

Environmental biodiversity, human microbiota, and allergy are interrelated by Ilkka Hanski et al
BBC article

The results of Havant Borough and Winchester City Councils decisions

 

Taylor Wimpeys Wellington Park development in Waterlooville continues with blocks of flats being built next to Southdown View. As this development progresses the buildings seem to have fewer and fewer features. These are bland white blocks with tiny windows at front and rear, and none along the sides. At first I thought they were offices (guess the still could be). But the access doors at ground level have pseudo victorian lamps by each door, not the sort of thing you would have on offices.

 

The old Waterlooville Wadham Stringer and latterly Caetano site has been demolished, with only huge piles of rubble remaining. The old Sprint Print building has also been demolished. I haven't checked the plans, but most people I have talked to think the Sainsburys petrol station is going top be built on the Sprint site, although I thought it had been moved to the recycling centre across the road. Yeah, Sainburys build petrol stations so you continue to pump CO2 from your car, and their own company CO2 figures look 'green'. Another CO2, export and green wash accounting measure. It's a nice little game such companies play, which is why CO2 emissions haven't come down in the UK and we are really fecked. The idea of consuming less and using less energy, just doesn't fit in with selling lots of crap everyday from a big retail store.

 

A view of the Sainbury site from the Waterlooville side. Note the already horrendous 'private' footpath and cycle path in the foreground. Havant Borough Council offloaded responsibility for this important path into Waterlooville years ago. It is still a nightmare for pedestrians and cyclists trying to reach the real Waterlooville town centre (you know, the one with buildings a 100 plus years old, the one the council is now determined to destroy, as they have destroyed in the past). This year we lose the Baytree Bookshop and others in the town centre. I'm guessing Sainburys will be selling books as well as food.

 

More devlopments in the Waterlooville retail park. A large unit being split into two smaller units. Downsizing!??

I haven't included in this post the start of work on the massive Grainger 2000 home development just behind the trees. The photo didn't come out to well, so that can wait for another time.

I also haven't shown the numerous trees that have been felled as a result of these developments.

Wellington Park

Had a look around Taylor Wimpeys Wellington Park and took some photos. This photo looks back towards Hambledon Road along Coulter Road. Fortunately the Oak trees on the right of the photo have been retained from the fields that the housing estate is built on. One thing the is lacking on the site is trees, the building work isn't complete yet but as can be seen on the left of the photo, there aren't a lot of trees planted near the homes. We'll have to see how things develop.

Some flats at the rear of the development. They will have a good view of Portsdown Hill, currently there are still earth works at the rear. I can't remember from the plan how far the site is supposed to extend back from Hambledon Road, possibly further than this point. In the background you can see the pylon cables.

On the other side of the completed estate looking back towards Hambledon road again. In the distance can be seen the strange flats with the chimney/vent in the centre of each building.

  

What is interesting is that some of the homes have Solar PV panels on the roof. Can't help thinking that 3 panels is a bit pathetic. Many houses now are having most of the roof covered in them. Not only that, why don't they also have solar heating panels as well?? It all seems like Taylor Wimpey aren't sure about what they are doing.

In the centre there is a small public green which is probably the best part. The houses on the left have solar heating panels and those next to them on the right have solar PV panels (electric). There are benches to sit on that don't appear in the photo.
One good aspect is that bollards are used to block off some roads from traffic, which means they would be safe for kids to use.

You can see from these photos that trees are largely sparsely planted and ornamental. Yes they are obviously very young, but I don't get the impression any big trees have been planted.

Wellington Park

Yet another change of name for the Taylor Wimpey housing development, once called Dukes Meadow and I think something else before that?? Now it's called Wellington Park, which is less subtle than Dukes Meadow. For a few months even the name of the developer changed, but now they seem to be happy with Taylor Wimpey:

Now and Then

Some photos taken near the Dukes Meadow development along the Hambledon Road in 2007 and this month:

October 2007:

February 2011:

 

Junction under construction across the road:

A lack of direction across the UK

Having pushed the idea of a 'service' economy for decades, serious problems are appearing in this ideology. This new decade will see major skills shortages in the science, engineering and agriculture sectors at a time when we need to increase the number from the current base level.

In the agriculture sector many farmers are close to retirement age, many are actually of retirement age and with no one to take their place. In the energy sector, some 30% of professionals are due to retire in the next 10 years, a lack of new recruits mean that keeping the lights on will be a struggle.

What are Hampshire colleges doing?
Not a lot as it happens. If you look at the list of subjects that colleges focus on today, they are dominated by subjects like media, art, tourism, animal welfare, retail, law, accountancy and so on. South Downs College actually installed part of an aircraft fuselage so that students could practice their air hosting skills. They also built a new music school.

Meanwhile there is a huge need now for a wide range of engineering and science skills to tackle the nations looming energy and environmental crisis. Do the colleges expect Tesco shelf stacker's and a trained holiday guide to operate a nuclear reactor, or climb up a wind turbine to service it?

Where are South Downs College and Havant College going to get their electricity from to train the hair dressers and tour guides?
Where is the food going to come from to feed the media students?
Where do media students expect the electricity to come from to power their computers and cameras?

An unbalanced economy doesn't just increase the carbon footprint of the goods we use (because the manufactured goods come from countries using more fossil fuels than us), it is also going to have a long term detrimental impact on the nations (and Hampshire) ability to maintain a level independence.

The agriculture and energy sectors are not the only areas that need a massive injection of skills. The Royal Academy of Engineers have recently chipped in by pointing out a lack of skills in the building industry to create low carbon buildings. In particular they indicated that current developers were putting 'eco-bling' on current buildings, rather than implementing eco-friendly building ideas that have been known for thousands of years. The Taylor Wimpey homes at the Dukes Meadow site near Waterlooville are prime examples of eco-bling.

Dukes Meadow Show Homes

Had a look around the Dukes Meadow new home builds recently. The whole site has changed back to Taylor Wimpey again, the Bryant name being removed from the whole site.

From the outside you can see that most of the houses have solar heating panels on the roof, although I'm not sure the flats do. The solar panels look like the older flat plate type rather than the vacuum tube type commonly available now. Unfortunately the sales staff aren't particularly technically competent, so I didn't get very far with the details!

I had a look around the bigger show home, where there were various controllers installed to control the lighting, alarm, heating etc. But no smart meters!?
All that tech to use energy and none to help save it?
Not having smart meters, seems like a big mistake to me.

All the homes seemed to be fitted with modern condensing gas boilers to work in tandem with the solar panels. All newly fitted gas boilers these days have to be the condensing type and they are roughly 90% efficient.

There is a mixture of flats, two storey houses and three storey 'town houses', all of which have a SAP energy efficiency rating of 'B'. This is one down from the top rating of 'A'. So by today's standards they are probably quite good, but I doubt if they match Passiv Haus standards in energy efficiency. Certainly in a few years time, energy efficiency standards will be raised further. In fact they should be higher now, but developers are dragging their feet.

I hope the Grainger properties will be better, they aren't however going to show their revised designs and ideas until early next year.