Regeneration game

Eco-development finds a formula for communal benefit Some hard lessons have hit home at a Bristol eco-building project. Now the organisers of community-based Ashley Vale Action Group are sharpening up their act. Five years ago AVAG came together to buy a two-acre brownfield site in the neglected St Werburgh’s district. On the former scaffolding yard, a large metal shed and a vandalised office block stood on a thick concrete pad. Fending off commercial developers, they successfully proposed to recycle the shed, renovate the office block and sell part of the site to a housing association. Another 20 plots were pre-sold to local self-builders, who each put up £35,000. They were contracted to build timber-framed houses directly onto the concrete pad, so no demolition was required. Much of this went well. The metal shed now stands happily on a farm outside Bristol. The self-builders’ houses have mostly been built, the cheapest for under £50,000, with only sustainable materials permitted. Collective bargaining got them good deals from suppliers. Photovoltaic cells, part-funded by the DTI’s Good Energy home generation scheme, produce enough electricity for homeowners to sell some surplus power back to the national grid. On the minus side, critics complained that the houses dwarf neighbouring Victorian terraces. The rocketing property prices of the early 2000s, meaning that the self-builders stood to profit heavily from their investment, also created some resentment. And AVAG, which has members both from the self-build group and the local community, has been embarrassed by the housing association’s failure to develop the land, and by hold-ups in the office block renovation. But it has come up with a solution. When the housing association put its plot on the open market recently, AVAG fought off developers to buy the land back. With interest in the project escalating, the group decided collectively to build shell houses, using sustainable materials and incorporating solar power. The sale of these on the open market will fund the development of the office block as a mixed residential, commercial and community building. The Ashley Vale Home Zone, one of the community-enhancing measures requested by local people, is now under construction, supported by bike-loving charity Sustrans and funded by AVAG. Traffic calming structures and redesigned parking spaces are in place in streets neighbouring the site. The reduced traffic flow already benefits families using St Werburgh’s City Farm and other leisure sites nearby. Ashley Vale is a neighbourhood reborn into a new sense of community. And none of the self-builders is selling. - James Russell

21 July 2005

James Russell