Plots: 22

Value: £3M

Status: Completed

Thakeham Partnerships was pleased to be involved in this project involving the redevelopment of a brownfield site on the edge of Godalming for Waverley Borough Council.

The existing building had been demolished by the local authority as it no longer met the decent homes standard and there was very low demand for the accommodation. In its place, the Partnerships team has delivered a 24-unit general needs scheme with 100% of the units being let at affordable rent.

The development consists of 14 one-bedroom flats, 8 two-bedroom flats and 2 two-bedroom houses. A total of 55 parking spaces will be provided partly serving other nearby council homes, as well as outdoor amenity space.

We faced a number of challenges in constructing this scheme. Initial site investigations established that the site was contaminated, a problem exacerbated by a high-water table. Our initial design and value engineering review explored various different foundation solutions and resulted in a recommendation to the client to use the Abbey Pinford pile and raft system. This approach allowed us to minimise the amount of contaminated arisings that we needed to remove off-site.

We also discovered, after the contract was signed, that what had been believed to be a private council owned road was in fact a County Council adopted highway. We had to re-design the drainage and negotiate a new strategy for offsite works with all key stakeholders. We achieved this without any additional delay to the contract period.