Willmott Dixon to build pioneering zero carbon school

Willmott Dixon is to build a £13m zero carbon school that will share its heating system with nearby housing.

The Crouch Hill Community Park development, built for the London borough of Islington, will have a carbon negative footprint when in use, the company has said. It includes new accommodation for Ashmount Primary school and Bowlers nursery, as well as a new energy centre.

“[Zero carbon] will be achieved by the school sharing heat distribution from the new energy centre with adjacent housing, a shared approach to community energy distribution that is a glimpse of how low and zero carbon buildings can be delivered on future UK developments,” Willmott Dixon said.

The school’s energy centre will use a biomass boiler and gas combined heat and power (CHP) unit, and share excess heat with a nearby council housing development. It will also use passive measures to reduce its energy consumption.

Penoyre and Prasad, AKT, Gifford and Whitelaw Turkington are also working on the project.

The company said it expects the school to achieve an ’outstanding’ BREEAM rating.

George Martin, director of Willmott Dixon’s in-house low carbon consultancy, Re-Thinking, said, “As we work towards creating new buildings from 2016 that make no net carbon emissions, the new school at Crouch Hill Community Park will provide our industry with an important learning tool for a community-wide approach to low carbon energy that can be refined and developed on future schemes. 

“I praise London Borough of Islington for having the foresight and imagination to make this project happen and we have assembled a very experienced team to deliver it successfully.”

Work will start on site in late February and finish in the summer of 2012.

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