What’s working — living and learning

Barking central, east London, Redrow Regeneration

Project

It’s been a long time coming. A development team for Barking town centre’s regeneration was initially selected seven years ago, but the first phase of a library cum learning centre, plus 246 apartments is only reaching completion this year. In the intervening years, Barking Central became the subject of a major dispute.

The project, on a site right next to the town hall, is much needed to provide the catalyst for change in a borough afflicted by social problems. But construction work stopped shortly after it began when the scheme’s first developer and contractor fell into conflict. In the aftermath, Redrow Regeneration took over the site, and with it the commitment to deliver the learning centre for Barking and Dagenham council alongside apartments in the first phase.

The learning centre is to be used by the University of East London, the Adult College and Barking College. It contains not only a library, but also a lecture theatre, classrooms, a cafe, a one-stop shop service, as well as the borough’s first art gallery. A spokesman for the council says: “This is an area of high illiteracy and we are having to think about how we can get people into employment. The building is key to that.”

Although the first phase of the project completes at the end of this year, the learning centre opens this month. The second phase includes an 18-storey tower with 136 apartments, a smaller residential scheme of 40 private and affordable units, 22,000ft2 of commercial space, 18,500ft2 of retail, and a public open space larger than Trafalgar Square. Redrow estimates that the scheme will redevelop around 40% of Barking’s town centre, and that the whole scheme will complete by around 2010. Redrow is working with original scheme architect, Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, contractor Ardmore, structural engineer Beattie Watkinson, project manager Nigel Rose, and cost consultant DBK Back.

The brief

There was already a library on the town centre site before the project began, and the redevelopment brief specified that the 1970s built library should remain and the new scheme be built over and around it. The reason for retaining the existing library was simple – the library had nowhere to move its contents to – but the retention of the existing library posed engineering and cost challenges. The council also wanted the regeneration to deliver other community benefits.

When Redrow came on board in December 2005, it renegotiated the development deal with the council. Redrow Regeneration managing director John Ireland explains: “The library was taking so much money, the project could not be delivered. The insurance required to build above and around a building and archive alone was massive. We started afresh. The scheme as it is now is still delivering everything needed to make regeneration work.”

The housebuilder value engineered the scheme and as a result produced a number of changes, notably increasing the number of units on the first phase from 206 to 246.

Feedback

Construction basically involves extending beyond the existing library footprint to create the much bigger learning centre, building a transfer slab over the existing library itself, and topping the whole with apartments around a central courtyard garden.

The scheme may have been value engineered, but none of the quality has been lost from the first phase. The main building is clad in white aluminium powder-coated panels, with balconies graduating in colour from yellow to green along the long elevation. Finishing touches will include giant chandeliers and terrazzo paving to front the learning centre, granite paving some four inches thick for the open spaces, and an arboretum of 50 8-10m high trees.

Having joined the project late, Redrow’s first challenge has been to make up for some of the lost time and deliver the learning centre when the borough wanted it, albeit on a very constrained site. The 17-month programme meant handing over the library to the client last March, but Redrow still accommodated client changes up till last December.

Redrow Regeneration’s senior regeneration manager Peter Green adds: “We’ve had monthly and regular intermediate meetings so there has been no opportunity for the kind of misunderstandings that often cause problems in construction.” Ireland praises contractor Ardmore: “They have produced the scheme for the price that they said they would, and they are running three months early on the main build programme” Ardmore has also sourced key build components via its own international supply chain, a factor that Ireland believes has delivered higher quality at competitive prices, particularly for apartment fittings.

Given that this construction relationship is a successful one, Redrow is working to keep the team in place for phase two. It has won planning approval and is negotiating the S106 agreement for the second phase, due on site in July.

At the same time as the learning centre opened to the public this month, 96 apartments were completed and ready for occupation. The apartments are accessed via a separate entrance to the library, but both elements of the building have the same signage, and the same acid colours, the apartment front doors painted in the same graduation of colours as the balconies.

Apartments range from 409ft2 one-bed units to two-bedroom penthouses and have at least one balcony. The first phase rapidly sold out, at prices starting at £160,000 for a one-bedroom unit. Investors bought the first phase apartments, but the housebuilder will be encouraging owner occupier sales for the next phase, which is due to launch later this summer.

The scheme is the first to be delivered by Redrow’s regeneration division and is taking the developer into new areas. Ireland lists some of the firsts: “We’re developing both a green roof and a brown roof. We have never worked on a scheme where colour is as integrated as it is here. We have never planted an arboretum as big as this.”

The second phase will continue the firsts, with renewable energy fuelled by biomass and a link to Barking’s proposed district combined heat and power plant scheduled for Barking Riverside. The scheme has no car parking but, there will be a large cycle park. Alongside it, the housebuilder wants to add an on-site bike shop, in a feature building, to generate local jobs and stimulate the local economy.

The scheme is already a catalyst for change, with cranes surrounding it from subsequent schemes. Apartment prices at Barking Central are likely to rise for the next phase. Ireland says: “We’ve grown the property values here so that Barking becomes viable and works. If you can’t get the private money in, then you are dependent on public funding.”

What is worth repeating?

Ireland believes its interest in allying essential cycle parking to local business and job creation could prove to be significant.

One point worth making

‘We have to make people spend money locally. Generally 60% of disposable income is spent within a two mile radius of where you live’
John Ireland, Redrow Regeneration

Chelmsley Wood, Solihull, Regenerating North Solihull

Project

The Chelmsley Wood estate is one of England’s best known council estates and one of the biggest. Located to the east of Birmingham, its life and times were chronicled by journalist Lynsey Hanley in her book, Estates – an intimate history, published this year. Built in the 1960s as an overspill estate for Birmingham, its 16,500 homes are of poor design quality and include notorious Radburn housing layouts, leaving property values some 5-10% below the South Solihull average. Its problems run a lot deeper than that. The three wards of Chelmsley Wood, Smith’s Wood and Kingshurst & Fordbridge that make up the 1,000-acre estate are within the UK’s top 10% of deprived neighbourhoods.

Regenerating North Solihull was established two years ago to provide the large-scale and dramatic change the area needs. It is a partnership of Solihull council, developer In Partnership, housebuilder Bellway Homes and affordable housing provider Whitefriars Housing Group. The regeneration partnership is a limited company – the route being chosen because Solihull’s affluence everywhere other than Chelmsley Wood ruled the estate out of government-backed initiatives.

Under the company agreement, the partnership buys land on the estate at its existing use value, gets planning permission, then sells the land to Bellway. Janet Bradbury, chief executive of Regenerating North Solihull, says of the business model: “It is a very effective way of using the public share value. All values come back into the partnership and that is the only way we can operate.” In all, 80% of the programme is funded by land receipts.

Over 15 years the partnership is improving 12,500 homes, building 8,000 new homes, creating 10 primary schools, building retail and other amenities, carrying out environmental improvements and both creating employment and improving access to it. The area has been masterplanned by Edaw.

The first 48-home housing scheme comprising apartments and houses for market sale, Alcott Grove, is completed and two more schemes are under construction. Most of the housing sites range from 45-85 units. The first school, Kingshurst Primary, is mid-way through construction, by a project team of designer Architects Design Partnership, contractor Bluestone and cost consultant EC Harris.

The Brief

The physical regeneration aims to lift the whole area not only through refurbishment but by providing new housing and, unusually, new schools. Bradbury says: “The existing housing is much of a muchness and to a particular layout, much of it Radburn. People have had no choice here – there were three housetypes across the whole of the Wood. We want a range of homes from affordable to aspirational.” New homes therefore include larger family houses. For existing residents equity share and assisted purchase schemes are on offer to enable access into new higher-priced homes.

The primary school development programme is also delivering crucial physical change, and is complemented by the rebuilding of senior schools. Bradbury says: “The local authority recognised that education was fundamental to the area. If you get a good school it is easier to attract teachers. We want to ensure educational attainment is high, because that is an important aspect of where people want to live. It is a two-pronged approach.”

The estate’s existing schools are distanced from the community by school grounds and high fences; the new schools are being integrated, and should be used more extensively. Some will have wraparound nurseries. One will provide facilities for the parish council and has a central location in a new village hub. Bradbury explains: “Where we co-locate schools with other activities, we’ll be looking at creating a critical mass of activities, like training or community advice, that we want parents of kids to get involved in.” School grounds could be used by sports clubs. As Bradbury says: “It makes the management of the facility so much easier, and it produces community ownership.”

Other amenities will be included in village hubs, which will also incorporate housing. The first village hub, Arran Way, is designed by Ian Darby Partnership and has just won outline planning approval.

The partnership also has a long list of social objectives. For example, with high levels of benefit dependency on the estate, it wants to provide vocational training and better bus links so that transport to work is not a barrier to employment.

Feedback

So far homes are selling well, with the first three-bedroom houses priced at from £169,000. Bradbury says: “Once the streetscene was there, people got the idea of it. One of the first homes sold was a four-bedroom home.” Stefan Briddon, director of Bellway Homes, says most initial buyers came from North Solihull, adding: “It helps to strengthen the message that the regeneration project is predominantly for the benefit of local people.”

The first school will be completed by the end of the year. Bradbury says: “It is fairly complicated because the new school has to be built in the existing school’s grounds. We are building the new school, and then demolishing the old one.” The partnership works with individual headmasters on the appointment of architects and has a former headmaster on its team to co-ordinate school relocations.

Although the regeneration company is just completing its first build projects, it is already keen to move faster, says Bradbury. “We spent a lot of time in the first year setting up the business plan. Our work now is to make sure the processes work. We want to build more schools sooner. Instead of building one a year, we could do two or three, partly to minimise the disruption of rebuilding and because people will be attracted by them. There is a perception that new is better.”

For Bradbury, key lessons are already emerging from this long-running project, firstly in community engagement. Bradbury says: “You must involve the community at the outset and have a very open approach without pre-conceived ideas. This is about dealing with needs and tackling issues. Everybody recognises and welcomes the change in the area, but you work with an area to come up with a plan that takes a long time to implement. You have to manage the uncertainty.”

There are also lessons from the inclusion of schools in the estates regeneration, which Bradbury sees as key in breaking the cycle of deprivation of such areas, and in the spirit of partnership that is breaking down conventional private and public sector barriers. Bradbury praises the council’s approach: “The local authority has shown joined-up thinking in driving things forward and getting it going. Without it we would still be talking legal agreements.”

Then there are the lessons of the partnership model itself. Bradbury says: “It is allowing us to recycle the values being created.” But she adds: “What you do need is funding for cashflow upfront. You have to build the first houses and you need working capital for that. Bellway invested £7m in the partnership at the start. Without that we could not have operated.”

The model is being watched with interest by the government and by English Partnerships. Bradbury says: “We are talking to them about getting more investment – not grant – into the programme so that we can do more sooner.” It is also talking to the agency about how the project could be used to deliver the sustainability agenda, with perhaps carbon neutral homes.

Another issue under debate with the powers that be is the different funding streams that need to be tapped into in order to deliver this kind of joined-up area regeneration. Bradbury explains: “We have to go to the DFES for funding for the schools, then to the Housing Corporation for housing, we also have some growth point money – it is a funding cocktail. We are grateful for all of it, but each comes with its own monitoring requirements and some of it is ring-fenced. What we really want is single-pot funding. We are being exhorted not to think in silos, but funding is in silos.”

What is worth repeating?

Bradbury believes the structure of the partnership, based around using land receipts to fund regeneration, is a model that could be re-applied. “The type of area we’ve got is replicated throughout England. But it is not the typical focus for regeneration because it is not a city centre or market town.” One major local authority has already visited North Solihull to learn about the partnership.

One point worth making

‘There are hundreds of thousands of people living like this. This model could be replicated up and down Britain’
Janet Bradbury, Regenerating North Solihull