Journal

A recent bitter-sweet LinkedIn post by Alan Beveridge, Associate Director at RCKa lamented his “pride and frustration” in RCKa’s recently completed Highgate Newtown Community Centre. The project is terrific, delivering 41 homes and a community centre, for Camden. However its journey from design through to completion has not been easy, taking more than a decade since RCKa were appointed. It was the trials and tribulations of this process that Alan described in his post.

I know Highgate Newtown Community Centre well having worked on a project just around the corner on Chester Road, for Bell Phillips since 2018. Construction has only just started on these 50 new flats providing temporary accommodation for homeless families for Camden. The project was selected as a pilot site for volumetric modular construction to accelerate delivery of the homes for those most in need.

A few days after Alan’s post, a post by Mikhail Riches caught my eye. It celebrates work progressing on their housing for Hackney at Buckland Street and Wimborne Street. It’s a bit triggering as we lost out to Mikhail Riches when we bid against them back in 2017 but there’s no sour grapes here. The project looks great and will deliver 113 homes, but yet again I’m bewildered by the amount of time that has passed.

I know that these schemes are all challenging Central London infill sites and there are mitigating factors; Brexit and COVID have presented huge challenges. However, it can’t be right that each of these projects, once completed, will have taken the best part of a decade, or more, to deliver. Whether it’s the planning process, bureaucracy or lack of resource, delays lead to teams chasing their tails trying to make these projects stack up. Delays hit viability, design teams undertake endless rounds of value engineering while costs continue to rise and on and on.

The government has committed to delivery of 1.5million new homes. It’s crucial that these are delivered to high standards of sustainability and quality. But high quality projects like these should be accelerated and local authorities should be given the tools to deliver them. These projects are all outstanding, delivering desperately-needed homes for local authorities. They should be completed in less than half the time.