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Millennium Communities Programme
Background
In response to the Rethinking Construction agenda, English Partnerships was tasked by the Government’s Urban White Paper of November 2000 to deliver a programme of Millennium Communities throughout England. Designed to deliver a lasting legacy of environmentally innovative and sustainable developments in diverse, challenging locations, the Millennium Communities have done much to influence and direct the house-building industry towards increasing environmental quality and the creation of high quality sustainable communities.
House-building today is set in a totally new context; Egan and the Sustainable Communities plan have been replaced by the Housing Green Paper, the Hills report and PPS on Climate Change. The BRE EcoHomes assessment tool for sustainable development has been superseded by the Code for Sustainable Homes. English Partnerships has minimum quality standards which apply to all developments on its land.
These new tools have been informed by the lessons learned from the Millennium Communities programme and current industry best practice has its roots in the Millennium Community Standards. Twenty one of the standards have been adopted and are now incorporated into either English Partnerships’ Quality Standards, the Carbon Challenge generic brief or the Code for Sustainable Homes, demonstrating their importance and legacy.
The sites
There are seven Millennium Communities:
- Greenwich Millennium Village, London
- Allerton Bywater Millennium Community, near Leeds
- New Islington Millennium Community, Manchester
- South Lynn Millennium Community, King’s Lynn
- Telford Millennium Community
- Oakgrove Millennium Community, Milton Keynes
- Hastings Millennium Community
The Programme
Initial plans for the Millennium Communities Programme included the production of over 6,000 innovative homes by 2010. Revised planning consents now project a total of 7,000 exemplar homes to be built by 2014, together with the creation of 1,000 new jobs and at least 50,000 square metres of commercial floor space which will result in innovative and sustainable communities. To date there are 1,350 completed and occupied Ecohomes ‘Excellent’ dwellings. All Millennium Communities are now on site and progressing through different stages of construction – Greenwich Millennium Village being the most established.
English Partnerships has taken the lead on cleaning-up the sites, piloting new remediation techniques and demonstrating to developers that difficult brownfield locations can be worthwhile, pursuable and profitable ventures.
Quality placemaking
Each Millennium Community has been developed around a different theme to showcase particular approaches to sustainable living. These include:
- Integrated transport at Hastings
- Life-long learning in Telford
- Community integration at South Lynn and
- High quality public realm and urban design at New Islington.
Providing community facilities in the early stages has proven to be a particularly important factor in the success of the Programme to date. These facilities allow us to work with local people and build links with existing communities which helps to prepare the way for new development.
The Millennium Communities provide a range of high quality and innovative homes facilitating an environmentally friendly lifestyle. Each of the new developments include green open spaces, wildlife areas and recreation facilities to provide public and private spaces where people want to live and community life can flourish.
Good transport links and shops are a priority and planners were tasked with giving as much thought to the needs of pedestrians and cyclists, as they do car-users. These concepts do not mean that all the communities look the same. Each one has been individually master-planned and designed to take account of the local environment.
The Programme has attracted some of the UK’s most talented architects and successful developers, rising to the challenge to deliver exceptional placemaking, helping to attract opportunities and investment, and establish flourishing neighbourhoods with bright prospects.
Standards
The Millennium Communities developments had very specific environmental and quality standards, which developers were required to meet. To ensure that the Millennium Communities kept a place at the cutting edge, these standards were updated with each new development agreement. Later phases are being briefed to meet the Code for Sustainable Homes at an appropriate level.
The standards incorporate performance data in each of the following:
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Millennium Community standards have been achieved in a wide range of house types from the high density urban apartments at Greenwich Millennium Village designed by internationally renowned architect Ralph Erskine, to the more traditional family homes at Allerton Bywater.
All community or commercial buildings within the Millennium Communities also have to achieve very high standards and all new public buildings need to meet the requirements of the Building Research Establishment’s BREEAM 'Excellent'. This is particularly evident at the new community centre in Hastings, which has a number of innovative construction methods including a green roof. Similarly, the school at Greenwich was one of the first BREEAM 'Excellent' schools in the country and a state of the art health centre is provided at New Islington, Manchester’s Millennium Community.
Who is choosing to live in these new communities?
The Millennium Communities are designed to include a range of different types and sizes of home, attracting a wide range of residents and demonstrating that there is definitely a market for these environmental homes.
Allerton Bywater in Leeds, for example, generated initial enquiries from people living nearby who were attracted by the new and exciting development work in their area. However, enquiries have since come from people who are attracted by the environmental credentials of the development; people who want to buy into this high quality lifestyle. Home Zones, Secured by Design, Sustainable Urban Drainage systems, live-work facilities and quality children’s play facilities all contribute to the overall offer. The close proximity of work opportunities and the newly refurbished community facilities also make Allerton Bywater an attractive and desirable place to live.
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Download the Millennium Communities Programme brochure from the Publications page.
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Partners
English Partnerships is working with the following partners on the Millennium Communities Programme:
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Registered social landlords |
Local authorities |
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RDA’s/URC’s |
Developers |
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Lessons learned
The Millennium Communities programme was also tasked with the dissemination of lessons learned to the wider building industry.
Visit the Millennium Communities Partners' Network event page to keep updated on all the recent Network events. Currently you can download the presentations that were given at the latest MCPN event at BRE, Watford.
Have you seen our e-magazines at: http://mcnetwork.englishpartnerships.co.uk/
