Building 37, Greenham Business Park, Greenham Common, West Berkshire
Greenham Business Park occupies the site of the old American Airbase near Newbury, in the shadow of the Berkshire Downs. It is steeped in the history of the cold war and is famous for the Greenham Women’s protest camp that became a permanent institution on its periphery, and which developed into an icon, not only of the anti nuclear movement, but also for feminism.
The business park has been established for over 20 years and is owned by the Greenham Trust. Sustainability is a core value for the Trust and the Business Park and all its buildings aspire to the highest standards. In addition, West Berkshire Council has a planning requirement that all Buildings achieve BREEAM Excellent.
As such, Building 37 was subject to a planning condition requiring a BREEAM New Construction (2014) rating of ‘Excellent’.
The units were constructed to ‘shell and core’ stage, limiting options for the categories to target for credits; this was exacerbated by the rural location of the site which meant that the ability to achieve transport related credits was limited. However, the client engaged with the BREEAM process at an early stage so a cost effective compliance strategy was formulated that benefitted from several early actions.
The building scored particlarly well in energy with a strategy that employed a novel approach to securing ENE01 credits by installing a PV array on a neighbouring warehouse building, which had low energy demand but a large area of suitable roofing, to benefit building 37 with a higher demand but smaller area of roof. It also scored well in materials, management and ecology.
