London & South East

£350m Clapham Park Estate Regeneration project underway

Clapham Park Homes have stated: ‘Our purpose is to regenerate the Clapham Park estates – refurbishing, demolishing and rebuilding homes where needed, as well as providing support for residents in need.’ Their vision is to provide Clapham Park tenants with high quality, well maintained homes at affordable rents in an area that has been revitalised by a network of new parks and open spaces, clean and safe streets, better transport, good schools and a wide range of community facilities, services and local jobs.

Resident surveys documented that the majority of the previous housing stock suffered from substandard heating, lack of thermal insulation and sound separation between dwellings, old kitchens and bathrooms, and electrical wire that needed replacing.

The Clapham Park area covers approximately 150 acres on a site between Brixton, Streatham, Balham and Clapham in the London Borough of Lambeth.

There are currently approximately 2,000 homes on site. Of these, 1,000 will be demolished and 1,000 will be refurbished. In place of the 1,000 demolished houses, 2,400 new homes will be created. These will comprise of a range of mixed tenure housing – approximately half rented and half affordable – from apartments, to one, two, three and four-bedroom terraced houses.

Work has already begun on site; refurbishment has taken place over the last three years, and is expected to be complete in the next few years. The first block of 85 apartments has been completed, whilst in the next month, 133 new apartments will be complete. In addition, a 50-bed Old Person’s home will be created. Next year, there will be 200 apartments built on site. In addition, there will be new nurseries and a gym, along with healthcare facilities. An area of the site has also been allocated for the local authority to build a new school. Retail and commercial space is also in the pipelines. The next phase is due to begin in the latter part of next year. As of yet, there is no particular fixed plan for developments.

The new and refurbished dwellings on the proposed scheme would achieve Eco-Homes ‘very good’ standards. The project is the result of mixed funding: ACA and New Deal for Communities have both funded the scheme, whilst the costs will be subsidised by private investors.

A framework of contractors was used for the scheme, whilst Durkan Contractors Ltd. acted as the main contractor, Ian Sayers the architect and Tully De’Ath the structural engineer.

Alistair Russell from Ian Sayer said that each building should be considered on its own merit. The homes, which have been built within 37 individual blocks and range from 3 to 10 storeys, have each been individually designed and are interspersed with the existing buildings. He said: “Each building is a challenge in its own right.”

DC Welding

DC Welding is a Canadian Welding Bureau certified metal fabrication company. They specialise in sheet, plate, structural and pipe fabrications utilising modern welding, bending, shearing and cutting equipment and procedures.

For the Clapham Park project, they provided:

  • A full set of in house drawings for supply and fit of the structural steel to the roof area of building.
  • A full set of drawing designs for metal staircases with a complete set of stair balustrade to all the stair cores of the buildings, supplied and fitted.
  • A complete steel galvanized structural painted frame to form walkways to each floor with glass balustrade with timber handrails.
  • Fully designed powder coated balcony frames with powder coated glass balustrade complete with frosted privacy screens.

For more information on DC Welding, visit www.dcwelding.com

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Roma Publications