Warehouse units, Houndmills Trading Estate, Basingstoke
These five warehouse were subject to a planning condition requiring a BREEAM New Construction (2014) assessment of ‘Very Good’. The units were constructed to ‘shell only’ stage, limiting options for the categories to target for credits, so it was fortunate that rating was not set at ‘Excellent’ as is often the case when Local Planning Authorities take a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach.
The client had not undertaken a lot of BREEAM work before, so Blewburton’s approach had to be more hands-on than that with an experienced client. This is an approach we seek to take with all new, or inexperienced developers undertaking BREEAM for the first few times.
The development is located on a brownfield site with excellent public transport links and unusually, the project benefited from being able to use demolished material as a source of aggregate, qualifying for a credit in Materials 2, which is often a tricky credit to score under BREEAM.
The scheme also benefited from both Blewburton’s client and the ultimate owners of the building engaging with the areas that required more work than usual for a development of this sort, which allowed for a comfortable buffer in claimed credits at both Design and Post Construction phases, something Blewburton Limited strongly recommend to all their clients.
