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| Newly built houses in Hampton |
Phil Newby practises what he preaches. The 38-year-old takes his work as an environmental consultant so seriously that he has embraced the zero carbon lifestyle by building an underground home. “I built it into a hillside,” he says. “It’s like a concrete box lined with lime and horse hair for insulation. I enlisted the local farmers to load 300 tons of earth on top, where I have grown a grass roof. I mow it with my Flymo.”
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| Phil Newby’s eco home in Barnwell |
Very ecological. Very Peterborough. The former new town became one of the UK’s Environment Cities in 1992. This, at the time, entitled it to development grants. Now it is focusing its regeneration plans and urban design initiatives on becoming one of the nation’s greenest.
“The concern for the environment is a unique selling point for a city that doesn’t otherwise have a USP,” says Newby, who moved from north London to set up his company, which acts as a link between business and the public sector, three years ago. “I no longer need to visit London for work because of the increasing numbers of like-minded businesses on my doorstep. With a population of 160,000, Peterborough is small enough for all the key decision-makers, such as the local authority, health, education and business, to sit around one table and make decisions.”
One of them is Steve Compton of urban regeneration group Opportunity Peterborough, an independent body that combines public and private support. “Our benchmark for all the projects we are undertaking is our Carbon Challenge complex. This is a 17-acre site on an old factory works to the south of the city where all the 450 houses will be built to level six of the [UK government’s] Code for Sustainable Homes, which means they will be zero carbon,” he says.
“When we started we thought we’d end up with a lot of flats but actually 60 per cent are houses because we need a whole range of people to make it sustainable – from young single to retired. There will be greenhouses and allotments and a sustainable drainage system flowing into the river, which are all part of zero carbon living. It’s not just about building units, it’s how you live within the units that matters.”
That aim will be helped – directly and indirectly – by the more than 340 businesses in Peterborough that are involved in the environmental sector, many of which are based in the Eco Innovation Centre. And the city has a head start in green transport thanks to the legacy left by the Peterborough Development Corporation, set up in 1968 to create a new town, based on a concept of suburbs – or “townships”, as they are known – linked by a system of “parkways” or trunk roads first used in Milton Keynes 60 miles to the south-west. This urban masterplan means it is a swift journey from the outer parts of the city to the centre and the railway station, which has made Peterborough popular with the estimated 15,000 people who make the 50-minute commute to London’s King’s Cross rail terminus daily.
It also has drawbacks, however. Commuters know how uninspiring the first sight of the city is. It’s not the 12th-century cathedral they glimpse as they arrive but multi-storey car parks and a busy inner ring road.
“We want to tame the road, which is like a motorway sometimes, by taking drivers back to the outer parkways and use shuttle buses from edge of city car parks and even a park and glide river taxi,” Compton says. “We will make the area between the station and the Queensgate shopping centre, which is to be refurbished, more attractive with small shops and low-carbon offices.” The city plans a sport, leisure and culture area on one bank of the willow-lined River Nene and a new university campus on the other. The plan is to build 25,000 new homes by 2021 – 5,000 in the city centre and the rest in the townships.
The biggest and most innovative is Hampton, which is rising from the 2,500-acre site of an old brickworks. Since planning permission was given 16 years ago, 3,750 homes have been built but, unlike uniformly designed estates, it has a variety of properties. Some are double-fronted, four-bedroom homes, others are in terraces. There are one-bedroom flats and two-bedroom family homes, many in different styles. The cheapest one-bedroom flats cost as little as £36,000 while estate agency Sharman Quinney has a “coach house” with a first-floor living and sleeping area for £105,000. Connells has a double-fronted, three-storey, five-bedroom house with two en-suite bathrooms overlooking a newly created lake for £279,995.
Roger Tallowin, general manager of O&H Properties, which owns the site and sells land to developers, explains how ecological measures are being designed into the developing township from the lowest level: “We provide the infrastructure by creating the open spaces, play areas, roads and shops and shifted 3.5m cubic metres of clay to create slopes and ponds. We built and extended three schools, which have long-term benefits because people are keen to move here because of them.”
Thirteen plots, of which three have been sold, have been set aside for self-build units in the new township, which will have a total of 7,600 units when completed, and enough land left for 28 allotments. Overall in Hampton, 54 per cent of the area has been left as open spaces with parkland, a nature reserve, 287 acres worth of lakes and ponds and 156 acres of woodlands. One hundred thousand trees have been planted, many lining the new roads and cycle tracks. The ponds have become home to thousands of greater crested newts and the Bearded Stone Wort, a rare plant, flourishes. “One way of looking at it is by what each property enjoys on average, which works out as 2,300 sq metres of nature reserve, 180 sq metres of lake, 80 sq metres of woods and 40 new trees,” Tallowin says.
The new suburbs are just one factor attracting residents. Paul Norton of estate agency Carter Jonas, says houses above the £1m mark are often bought by commuters lured not just by the swift train service but because houses offer better value.
“The city’s move to establish itself as an environmental capital has made an impact in the past six months or so,” he says. “Families move here as a life choice and because there are very good schools in the area.”
The city’s most popular area is Longthorpe, with its pretty limestone thatched cottages. Few are more attractive than Orchard House, a manor in need of some renovation with seven bedrooms, two bathrooms as well as a one-bedroom annexe. For £695,000 the buyer also gets an acre of land, including a folly. Nearby, a new detached home with two big downstairs rooms, a study and four double bedrooms, two en-suite, is on offer for £275,000.
Carter Jonas focuses on the villages in the city’s hinterland, such as Wansford, where a grade II-listed 18th century cottage with a courtyard garden and one large living area is £325,000. And for those who want to be close to their child’s public school, a three-bedroom detached home by the River Nene in Oundle, a small town 15 miles south-west of the city, is £500,000.
But it is green education that is the main focus for Peterborough’s ambitions, albeit to a lesser degree than in other locations. “I visited Malmö, Sweden, where there are many innovative urban schemes,” Compton says. “If you buy a property there you have to go on a training scheme for a week to learn to lead a zero-carbon life. And you have to come back for a refresher after a year. Maybe we should make it compulsory.”
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Estate agencies
Connells, tel: +44 (0)844-502 0397, www.connells.co.uk
Sharman Quinney, tel: +44 (0)1733-421 866, www.sharmanquinney.co.uk
Carter Jonas, tel: +44 (0)1733-568 100, www.carterjonas.co.uk
