Refurbishment and extension of existing apartment blocks, West London
This estate is being entirely renovated in a five phase project, with Blewburton involved from the outset with Phase One starting in 2012. All the apartments are required to gain a BREEAM Domestic Refurbishment (2014) rating of ‘Very Good’, as stipulated by the Local Planning Authority.
The first four phases are now complete (December 2019) and the fifth phase is at Design Stage. The total number of units assessed, once Phase 5 is complete, will be 238, with an additional floor being added to all ten blocks on site.
One of the challenges relating to this site has been that each phase has been overseen by a different project manager, but fortunately, the overall approach has broadly stayed the same and has been successfully delivered by the contractor. There was even a seamless transition from the 2012 scheme to the 2014 upgrade.
The approach to Part L1B compliance has also been strong on this site, allowing for a good score in the energy section. This was undoubtley helped by Blewburton undertaking the SAP calculations, allowing for quick and structured responses to changes in specification with one eye on the Building regulations and the other on the effect of the changes to the BREEAM score. This is an approach we advocate for all BREEAM Domestic Refurbishment projects.

As the final phase of this project comes to an end next year, it will be very satisfying to see the benefit this whole estate has had from undertaking what is arguably, the best thought out of the BREEAM family of schemes and we look forward to undertaking similar, large-scale refurbishment BREEAM projects in the future.