South Down Project

A WORLD-CLASS, SELF-SUSTAINING, ECOVILLAGE, ON A BROWNFIELD SITE IN THE SOUTH DOWNS NATIONAL PARK.

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Sustainable

Benefits – Sustainable

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Undoubtedly, the South Downs is a place of immense natural beauty, with a rich natural, geographical and social history. The South Downs National Park, and the area currently occupied by the Cement Works and Chalk Pit, are both recognised as assets for the UK in general and the South of England in particular.

It is therefore incumbent upon whomever develops the Chalk Pit to place the sustainability of that development at the heart of their proposals and delivery. It is their responsibility to firstly preserve, and then enhance, the heritage of this unique landscape and environment.

Sustainability

Sustainability, as a concern for the future, has been investigated for many years. “Our Common Future”, by most people known as the Brundtland Report, was published in 1987 and is the outcome of the work by the World Commission on Environment and Development.

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The report laid out the concept of sustainability as containing environmental, economic and social aspects. His definition, as a model for environmental sustainability, bears heavily on economic sustainability at the cost of social and environmental sustainability. The South Down Project does not accept this premiss, and believes the integration of each element of sustainability is both essential and achievable.

“Sustainability is the ability to continue a defined behaviour indefinitely”.

Sustainability, as a whole, encompasses every aspect of this project. The developed site aims to not only remain ‘off grid’ in terms of both electricity and water, but also to provide further advancement into the research and understanding of a ‘renewable society’ or ‘socially sustainable society’ through a number of information centres based within the site.

It is the intention of the Project team to create an example of sustainability that can be used as an exemplar for years to come.

Past experience shows that the long-term social needs of new communities are often overlooked in the drive to deliver housing on a large scale. Without the right social infrastructure new communities can quickly spiral into decline.

This report is based on work with the Homes and Communities Agency to understand how to change the way planners and built environment professionals think about creating new places. Because of the confusion regarding what constitutes social sustainability, a possible direction for agreement on what the tangible goals of social sustainability may be, can be found in Bhutan’s national goal of optimizing “gross national happiness” (GNH).

The assessment of gross national happiness was designed in an attempt to define an indicator and concept that measures quality of life or social progress in more holistic and psychological terms than only the economic indicator of gross domestic product (GDP). GNH has only been officially used in Bhutan, where a Gross National Happiness Commission is charged with reviewing policy decisions and allocation of resources. In 2013, with a new administration, the country shifted the focus from spreading GNH globally to the well-being of people within Bhutan.

Design for Social Sustainability

“Design for Social Sustainability” (The Young Foundation, 2011) sets out a framework for planning and designing the service, spaces, housing and governance arrangements to help local communities to thrive.

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Social sustainability is largely neglected in mainstream sustainability debates. Priority has been given to economic and environmental sustainability, in particular in the context of urban planning and housing, where policy and investment has focused on renewable resources, low carbon communities and encouraging pro-environmental household behaviours. As a result, there are few practical resources that directly address the question of how to create places that are socially sustainable, as well as physical infrastructure that is environmentally sustainable.

Blending in

Once the development has been established, with systems in operation to keep the community ‘off the grid’, the focus shifts to the potential impact which may or may not be sustained to the immediate vicinity. Sustainability, by its definition, is the diversification and constant productivity of a given ecosystem – that being said, the project has to fully integrate with the conditions of the present area.

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To achieve this, an analysis of all local species that currently reside within a 10 mile vicinity of the site, taking both flora and fauna into account, will be undertaken to minimise the potential impact that day to day operations may have. Special care will also be taken during the construction and demolition phases to ensure minimal interference and influence is imposed on the surrounding ecosystem.

Once an accurate gauge of the surrounding area has been established, with a positive influence being received (as opposed to negative, as is common with the majority of new building projects) to further the diversification of local species as well as maintaining and increasing the productivity of those currently in place. This will be achieved by encouraging and furthering the conditions necessary for natural wildlife to thrive in the local area, with zero emission and waste emitted from the South Downs Project site. Information regarding the ecosystem will be obtained from unimpeachable sources, including the National Biodiversity Network

Some sustainable initiatives are already in place and are administered by the South Downs Authority. The South Down Project would seek to work with the South Downs Authority, the Sustainable Communities Fund (SCF), and the Sustainable Transport Solutions Fund (STSF), to deliver a development that fully realised the sustainable potential of the site.

 

Environmental Sustainability is the ability to maintain rates of renewable resource harvest, pollution creation, and non-renewable resource depletion that can be continued indefinitely.

Economic Sustainability is the ability to support a defined level of economic production indefinitely.

Social Sustainability is the ability of a social system, such as a country, to function at a defined level of social well being indefinitely.

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The South Downs project aims to develop the Chalk Pits in a completely sustainable manner, taking into account every aspect of the process, from the clearing of the existing site, to the materials and methods used in the construction phases.

Ultimately, the site aims to operate completely off the grid in all aspects – with innovative technologies providing the generation of electricity through a number of channels, including human waste and product waste, solar and wind turbines (eventually being able to sell excess back to create further incentives for those living within the community).

The South Down Project are also in early negotiations with a Fuel Cell supplier that could deliver energy to the inhabitants and businesses in the site for a period of five years free of charge.

New desalination technologies will also be implemented to provide clean drinking water for the residential and commercial needs within the site, taking advantage of an unlimited supply of salt water running within easy reach of the facilities proposed location.

The cultivation and refinement of biomass as an additional source of fuel has also been suggested as another possible route to be explored by the various generating facilities within the South Downs Project.

Clearing the existing structure will require a serious input of both heavy machinery and waste extraction due to the nature of the localised contamination, partnered with the scale of the demolition work necessary prior to the construction phase. Tackling this in a completely green manner is impossible, however certain steps can be taken to balance the estimated carbon emissions that will be produced at this time. Services and companies currently exist that will balance and negate carbon quotas with planted trees in specific locations, possibly within the directly adjacent locality, or as part of an integrated, strategic, approach across the South Downs National Park.

Any contaminated land or building will have to be removed from the site, the disposal of which will be handled by the specialists employed to deal with the (relatively) small degree of asbestos present.

In terms of the existing structure, every effort will be employed to reuse and recycle as many materials as possible to minimise potential waste created in the operation. One of the potential technologies to be implemented in the later construction phase involves the ‘gritting’ of old building materials and glass to form the interior of a building façade, thereby ensuring as much of the existing structure is reused in the new buildings and keeping sustainability paramount.

Collaboration with the SDNP

The SDNPA is collaborating in partnership with stakeholders in order to develop its National Park Management Plan (NPMP) ,which will be current until 2035. In addition, the SDNPA will be cognisant of the European Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) directive.

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The objective of the “SEA Directive” is:

“To provide for a high level of protection to the environment and to contribute to the integration of environmental considerations into the preparation and adoption of the plans…with a view to promoting sustainable development”

All of the SDNPA’s plans and policies are developed within the context of the organisation’s statutory purposes which are:

“To conserve and enhance the natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage of the area;

And to promote opportunities for the understanding and enjoyment of the special qualities of National Parks by the public.”

Other groups have taken the lead shown by SDNPA and have established a variety of sustainable options. The Sustainability Centre (www.sustainability-centre.org) emphasise three main objectives:

1 Social mix ensuring a strong, healthy and just society for existing and future communities.

2 Economic compliance where environmental and social costs fall on those who cause them, where resources are distributed fairly and efficiently.

3 Environmental adherence, respecting and protecting the limits of the planet’s environmental resources and biodiversity.

Sustainability is absolutely essential to protect the Down Land, but
an equally important ecological ingredient when developing a Down Land community, is a zero carbon self sustaining environment.
To this end, the natural elements can be harnessed, waste products can be transformed into bio-fuel, geothermal/heat sinks, heat pumps, bio-thermal insulation and heat exchanging processes to exhaust the energy before it becomes inert.

All the above objectives can be delivered by the South Down Project in the context of the Chalk Pit, but only with the aid and cooperation of all the key stakeholders as they work alongside us to develop an innovative and ambitious development.

We have already started detailed discussions with the Land Trust to enable the ongoing maintenance and sustainability of the site.

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