PROJECTS
Project: 20 residential flats, including 3 affordable rent
Location: Forest Hill, London
Client: Rapeed Design ( via Newsteer Real Estate Advisors)
Services: Transport Planning, Drainage Engineering
A former care home in Forest Hill, London, vacant since 2015, was proposed for demolition and replacement with a part three, part four storey building providing 20 residential flats, three of them affordable rent. The site had not found a viable operator as a care facility and the decision was taken to bring it back into productive use as housing. Both transport planning and drainage engineering were required to support the planning application on a constrained inner-London site with limited space above and below ground.
The development would increase the impermeable area of the site by around 10%, raising the risk of downstream flooding from surface water runoff. London Clay beneath the site made infiltration unviable as a disposal route. The nearest watercourse was approximately 1.2 kilometres to the east, making connection to it impractical. Above-ground space for attenuation was severely limited by the development footprint. On transport, the site could not provide a policy-compliant level of on-site car parking, placing reliance on surrounding streets whose actual available capacity had not been established.
Planning permission was granted. During the determination period the Council sought clarification on both the drainage and transport assessments. Both were answered swiftly, with positive consultation responses from the relevant consultees and no delay to the programme. The former care home was brought back into residential use.
“Trust in the advice is what formed the relationship. As a consultant, if you’re in charge of picking the team, you only want the best.”
David Brown | Director | Newsteer Real Estate Advisors
We took a deliberate step back before we stepped in. Rather than working on drainage and transport as separate problems in sequence, we mapped the constraints together to understand what each required. On drainage, we developed a solution that captured and attenuated surface water within the site’s footprint before controlled discharge to sewer, managing the increase in impermeable area without routes that were not available. On transport, we built the parking assessment from survey data on the actual capacity of the surrounding streets, making the case for the development’s parking approach with evidence capable of withstanding technical scrutiny during determination.
Calibro has not only been able to identify and present clear and compelling strategies for large and complex site promotions – ones that don’t just rely on costly infrastructure improvements – but they also take a very proactive and innovative approach in the way they engage with key stakeholders.
