With mixed communities fast becoming a mantra for the Government, Hounslow LBC is already well advanced with a £100m urban regeneration scheme that aims to achieve big things. The Paragon project is a partnership between the local authority, social investment agency Presentation, Thames Valley University and developer Berkeley First. The development is in Brentford, near the elevated M4 and GlaxoSmithKline’s HQ on the Great West Road. The site originally accommodated a brewery and industrial workshops. Then, in 1992, it was granted planning permission for a 10-storey office block and multi-storey car park, but they were never built. In re-assessing how to take advantage of a prime urban site which had lain derelict for over a decade, Hounslow saw the opportunity to regenerate the area and negotiated a mix of intermediate housing units on the site. ‘We’re extremely focused on helping people in the borough find decent places to rent or take their first steps toward home ownership,’ says head of strategy and performance (housing) for Hounslow, Barbara Perry. ‘This is crucial in places like Brentford where rents and house prices are so high.’ Given these priorities, Presentation was able to meet the requirements of the council and was selected to deliver the scheme. The organisation combines the capacity to manage large projects with an underlying commitment to community development and social justice. Paragon is a great partnership effort which will make a big positive impact on the borough. It will help local people who’d otherwise struggle to afford good quality homes without leaving the area. The project will provide more than 1,000 new homes: 839 student apartments and 221 affordable studio and two-bedroom flats for rent and shared ownership. But it’s not a housing scheme alone. Unusually, it has a strong academic element, with a 12,000m2, architecturally-striking building that will soon be Thames Valley University’s health and human science faculty. By providing such large new teaching premises and the University’s first-ever student accommodation, it’s consolidating the institution’s reputation, while helping establish Hounslow as a strong educational district. The mixed residential/academic focus clearly fits with the Department for Communities & Local Government’s desire to see well-functioning mixed communities and to encourage home ownership. In addition, by bringing well over a thousand new residents into Brentford plus a university campus for the first time, it will give a significant boost to the local regeneration process already under way. In planning the project, the partners decided that a bold scheme needed radical building methods. As a result, Paragon has become the UK’s tallest project to use ‘modular’ construction (pictured above). This was driven partly by necessity, given the challenges posed by the site. Firstly, its area is merely two hectares, so the scheme simply had to be tall. Its buildings range from four to 17 storeys, all fitting neatly within an urban context which includes a string of corporate HQs along the Great West Road leading to Heathrow in one direction and to central London in the other. Secondly, the area is right next to a busy existing community, including a church and a primary school, so site disruption has had to be kept to a minimum. To address this, modular building methods have been adopted for the homes. Hounslow’s Barbara Perry adds: ‘We want to help key workers, low earners, people in social housing and those who want to leave their parents’ home but live nearby for family support. By accommodating these groups within the borough, we can help foster truly well-balanced communities.’ w Mohni Gujral is chief executive of Presentation
