Community-Led Housing at Kings Tamerton

In order to reach net-zero by 2050, we need to change the way we build new homes.

We are working in partnership with Plymouth City Council to develop community-led, zero-carbon, affordable homes. Our first housing development is on land off Coombe Way, Kings Tamerton, Plymouth.

Our flagship scheme will be the first in England to use the Energiesprong Approach, an innovative approach to deliver high quality net zero homes at lower cost. It will form part of Plymouth City Council's Plan for Homes, and be a part of the City's Climate Emergency Action Plan.

We have received preliminary planning approval (known as reserved matters) for an affordable, community led, zero carbon development of 70 new homes that integrates our net-zero ambitions and wider One Planet Living design principles. We want to create focal community green spaces, with access to surrounding local nature reserves. We are seeking to deliver net gain in biodiversity and provide options for local food growing, as well as sustainable transport options. The development will be split into two phases, as shown in the pictures below, full details of the initial masterplan and the design principles behind it are shown in the links below.

Our Kings Tamerton project will be the first new-build scheme to use the Energiesprong approach in England, and so we needed to understand whether this was a realistic ambition. The research allowed us to demonstrate that there is significant interest in this approach and has helped us to embed the design, build and guarantee principles that we intend to use within our contracts.

Energiesprong is a straightforward, pragmatic and flexible approach, applicable to a wide range of situations and house types. It is not a commercial product or brand; no company, product, technology or materials are specified, just the outcomes that everyone needs: warm, affordable, desirable, net zero homes. It's previously been widely used to upgrade existing homes.
 

When we talk about net zero homes, we are using Energiesprong's definition of ‘net zero energy’, meaning a home generates enough energy in a year to meet that required for its heating, hot water and electrical appliances.

To help choose the right team to work with us to design and build the homes to the Energiesprong standards, we secured funds to run an innovative design competition in which three competing teams were tasked to demonstrate how they would innovatively and creatively meet our net-zero requirements.

Over the course of twelve weeks we received detailed submissions from KIN, Classic Builders and TopHat. They each provided unique solutions to the challenge and were supported by our own independent team of energy and housing design experts to help refine these proposals, and then to assess the winner.