Sanderstead Road development. Photo: BRE

A local housing development in Croydon has won a prestigious eco award, recognising the borough’s consistent drive to build more sustainable housing.

The development on Sanderstead Road was named the winner in the Eco Homes category in the 2010 BREEAM awards, given by the national body for researching and consulting on new buildings.

BREEAM (BRE Environmental Assessment Method) is the most widely used environmental benchmark for buildings. It sets the standard for best practice in sustainable design and is used to describe a building’s environmental performance.

The BREEAM Awards recognise and reward those involved in the design and construction of the highest scoring buildings certified under the organisation this year.

Set on a brownfield site, the development consists of 38 flats, three commercial units and four semi-detached houses using a thermally efficient, highly insulated timber frame construction.

The use of photovoltaic panels to serve the communal spaces, whilst meeting the renewable energy targets for the development, will also offer reduced running costs for the landlord.

Croydon is an environmentally proactive borough council, and sets standards that exceed government targets. In line with this, a condition of the granted planning consent was for the development to achieve an ‘excellent’ Ecohomes rating.

The development scored well in a number of assessment criteria including access to local amenities, water drainage, lighting, environmentally sound materials and consideration given to the provision of daylight.

Mark Lydall, spokesperson from AHP Architects & Surveyors who designed the build said: “BREEAM certification was a requirement of the environmentally proactive borough council, which also ensured that Housing Corporation funding was available for the development.”