Brent Cross, Cricklewood

Brent Cross Cricklewood is London’s newest major regeneration project. The scheme will deliver new parks, schools, jobs, shops, homes, and the largest investment in transport infrastructure, community and leisure facilities in the area’s history – in fact a new town centre created over the next 20 years.

The Brent Cross Cricklewood Partners, leading the regeneration, are working with the Mayor of London’s office and Barnet Council to bring pioneering standards of environmental sustainability to a scheme that will deliver £4bn of investment and 14 million sq ft of development to a key part of north-west London.

Waste recycling and renewables

The regeneration of Brent Cross Cricklewood will make use of a wide range of initiatives and new technologies to minimise environmental impact. Key to this will be a new state-of-the-art waste handling and recycling facility to replace the current ageing facility from which most of the waste is sent to landfill sites.

This will separate and sort all recyclable materials first and then pass the remaining waste through a treatment cycle which will generate a renewable fuel. This fuel will then be used in a new Combined Heat and Power Plant that will provide electrical power, district heating and cooling to buildings across the regeneration area.

By putting in place the necessary pipes, cables and other infrastructure, the use of sustainable fuels can increase over time as renewable energy technologies improve and other fuels, such as biomass and hydrogen, become more readily available and reliable. domestic and commercial waste from the development will be delivered to the new handling facility using an automated waste collection system, consisting of a network of buried pipes along which waste is moved.

With multiple access points provided both directly from the buildings and across the regeneration area, this reduces the need for traditional refuse collection, making recycling far easier, reducing the space needed for waste storage and reducing waste transportation. initially it is estimated that 40 percent of household and 60 percent of commercial waste will be recycled, rising to 70 percent by 2020.

This combination of automated waste collection, waste treatment and combined heat and power will be unique in the UK and lead to dramatic reductions in carbon emissions.
A number of other measures are also being introduced, including:

• Green Roofs (planted rooftops) on at least 10 percent of the roof space
• the collection of at least 10 percent of rainwater to be used for irrigation, and drainage measures to prevent water run-off during storms and heavy rain
• installation of low-water-use fittings
• buildings designed and constructed to reduce carbon footprint, assessed against the Government’s Code for Sustainable Homes, including the use of building materials that do not contribute to global warming (the Montreal Protocol List).

Taken together, the commitments made by the development Partners will have a real and significant impact and ensure that ‘environmental sustainability’ is at the very heart of the development.