The Brooks

Sustainable new homes

The Brooks is a scheme providing 80 new council homes across three sites in Kidbrooke as part of the Royal Borough of Greenwich’s Greenwich Builds initiative.

The new properties will be a mix of houses and apartments, spread across the three sites, each with between one and four-bedrooms. Eight of the properties will also be wheelchair accessible. The homes are being built using a sustainable modern method of construction (MMC), where modules are manufactured in a factory and transported to the site for assembly, reducing noise pollution, energy consumption and carbon emissions. They are also designed to meet net zero standards and will include sustainable technologies, such as air source heat pumps and solar panels.

Parking and cycling spaces

As well as off-street and Blue Badge car parking spaces, the development will also include Electric Vehicle (EV) charging points, in accordance with the council’s policy requirements and the predicted car ownership levels of future occupiers of the new dwellings.

The parking demand arising from the proposed development will be accommodated by the provision of new formal parking spaces, the new podium car park and partly in the large observed reserve kerb side parking capacity on the local roads.

Long-stay cycle parking will be provided for each house within the curtilage of each property and cycle stores will be provided for the flats and the retail unit. Short-stay cycle parking spaces for visitors will also be provided.

Upgrades to open spaces and play areas

The project includes a £750,000 budget for major enhancements to existing open spaces, including parks and playgrounds. This is being brought forward via a series of community engagement initiatives with the landscape architects.

Following a public consultation in July 2020, the upgrades agreed include:

• A new pocket park, south-facing terraced public gardens and a sunny podium garden, allotment growing areas
• The planting of 200 new trees along with areas of new planting to attract wildlife and add seasonal interest. Bat and bird boxes and green walls will provide a hugely improved level of biodiversity in comparison with the close-mown grass spaces currently on the sites. No existing trees will be removed during the construction work.
• Extensive new and improved well-lit and well-overlooked pedestrian routes across all three sites, with an enhanced pedestrian crossing on Rochester Way which will greatly improve safety.