12 LIFE AT THE PHOENIX

12.1 LIFE AT THE PHOENIX: IN SUMMARY

This neighbourhood responds to the challenges of finite resources, ecological and climate change, and the increasing cost of living by supporting a way of life that promotes wellbeing, reduces consumption and is affordable for everyone.

The Phoenix will be a place where people can live well in a way that is also good for the planet. It is also a place that will address the demographic challenge faced by Lewes, where current projections show that there will be a 22% increase in the over 65 population in Lewes by 2030, on an already relatively aged population. The Phoenix aims to play a part in reversing this trend by providing homes, jobs and services for our younger generation as well as meeting the needs of older people who want to downsize, releasing larger properties in the town for families.

Affordable living

There will be up to 700 new homes at the Phoenix, most of which will be apartments with the majority being 1, 2 and 3 bed homes to address the shortage of this type of accommodation in Lewes as identified by the District Council in its recent Topic Paper on Improving Access to Housing in the District. This will be a major contribution to meeting the chronic shortage of decent housing in Lewes and the wider National Park.

The new homes at the Phoenix will meet the needs of people of all ages and incomes.

Human Nature is targeting that 30% of the new homes will be provided at lower than market price, with the mix and tenure subject to agreement with Lewes District Council and the National Park, but with a significant amount of Lewes Low Cost Housing.

Some of the housing, including some of the affordable homes, will be provided in a cohousing building, which is being planned with the help of Action in Rural Sussex.

Almost all the new homes are designed to be visitable by disabled people (other than a very small number which will have stepped access to the front door), at least 50% of the homes will be accessible and adaptable for the changing needs of residents as they get older, and at least 5% will be fully wheelchair accessible.

The size and design of the homes aims to meet the particular needs of young single people, young families, and older people who are looking to down-size, all of which we know are in short supply in Lewes.

The affordable homes will be available first to people who have a family connection with the town of Lewes. There will be restrictions on the use of the new homes for Air Bnb and second homes. The construction of the new homes will achieve the highest standards of insulation, thus reducing utility bills by c 80% as compared to conventional homes.

There will be a neighbourhood-wide energy grid, supplying 100% renewable heat and electricity to everyone who wants to use the service. Electricity will be generated through rooftop photovoltaics (PV) and by off-site renewable energy facilities.

Heat will be provided using ground source heat pumps around the site with a distribution network built into the infrastructure of the neighbourhood. This will provide both heating and cooling for all the buildings on site.

These utilities will be provided by a joint venture company between Human Nature and a specialist provider, to ensure that these services are maintained in perpetuity. They will be provided at a guaranteed 10-15 % discount to open market tariffs.

Water consumption will be reduced to less than 90 litres per person per day, the current policy requirements, through the provision of highly efficient taps and sanitary ware throughout the development.

There will be a community canteen in the Every Building (the old Hammonds building), which will serve local food and drink at affordable prices, managed by a local enterprise. Work has already started on the Community Food Initiative, identifying local suppliers of sustainable produce as well as planning and establishing community food growing initiatives, working with the Lewes District Food Partnership as part of the Human Nature response to the existing food crisis in Lewes.

By providing a range of shared services (including the co-mobility services and the reuse centre) the Phoenix will reduce the cost of living by encouraging people to share and reuse rather than having to buy. For instance, not having a private car saves on average £3,500 a year in tax, insurance and running costs.

Estate management will be provided by an Estate Management Company that will have representation from residents and tenants. This will ensure that all the common spaces are managed well for the benefit of the residents and tenants, and that the service charges are set transparently and at affordable levels.

Human Nature is planning to provide an estate agency service that will provide green, affordable mortgage and home insurance services for everyone who wants to use them, working with providers who specialise in green investment and insurance products.

All this means that the cost of living at the Phoenix will be significantly lower than in a traditional neighbourhood, responding to both the climate crisis as well as to local and global economic conditions.

Sustainable living

There is a global shift occurring away from a way of life based on mass consumption, towards a new, smart green way of living, in which sharing resources, reducing consumption and local production are significant components. At the Phoenix, the design of the development encourages this way of life.

The co-mobility service, run by Human Nature in joint venture with a specialist provider, will provide easy and affordable access to electric cars, cargo bikes and bicycles, reducing the need for private ownership unless people have particular needs, such as people with disabilities and those who need a specialist vehicle for work. For deliveries, the service will provide a “lastmile” delivery service using E Cargo bikes from the Co-Mobility Hub. We are already providing facilities for a pilot E Cargo bike service on the site. The Hub will provide parking for those residents who own their own cars as well as for the wider town.

The service will also provide an electric shuttle bus to move people quickly and easily around the site and potentially to connect to the wider town.

The site is designed to be easily accessible for walkers, cyclists and wheelers, with a rich network of internal connections as well as connections into the town. This means that most of the requirements of daily life are available in walking, wheeling or cycling distance, either in the neighbourhood or in the wider town.

The design of the place will encourage sharing of resources and spaces, thus allowing the emergence of a strong sense of community and social integration, which is a major contributor to individuals’ health and wellbeing.

Shared gardens, maintained by a partnership between the residents and the Estate Management Company, will be beautiful places for people to relax and exercise, children to play as well as providing a key component of the rain water management on the site.

Shared, low traffic streets, with places for people to meet and rest in comfort, will also encourage social interaction, neighbourliness and a strong sense of community. Shared facilities, especially in the co-housing blocks, including laundries, kitchens and communal areas will provide opportunities for people to meet as well as reducing the cost of living.

Human Nature will create a place that inspires and enables all to live well within the planet’s means, providing excellent recycling, waste management and composting facilities onsite. The latter provides a good example of the Phoenix circular economy: food waste will be composted, providing fertilisation for urban farming, where food is grown for the neighbourhood community canteen, cafés and restaurant.

We are providing spaces for residents to set up their own ventures focused on upcycling, repair and reuse: what can’t be fixed or upcycled will be sorted on site for recycling, with only the residual material collected by the council. This service will be provided in the Re-Use Centre that will be provided on the site, which will reduce waste and provide affordable goods and services for residents. The Library of Things will lend tools and equipment to residents when they need them.

The Repair Café will help residents repair and reuse domestic goods. There will be a retail outlet in the centre specialising in “second life goods”, assisting in the reduction in the cost of living whilst reducing waste.

Working

The Phoenix will create 10,000 square metres of commercial, service and employment space. space for people in: healthcare in the Health Centre; hospitality through the new hotel, community canteen, taproom and restaurant; a community nursery; retail; and small-scale manufacturing, tech businesses, and other local enterprises. The retail element will be designed to meet the day to day needs of the neighbourhood, and will not compete with the High Street.

The development is expected to generate 381 jobs, of which 173 will be new jobs in the local economy including 139 new jobs on the Phoenix. It is predicted that the 1,200 residents will generate £11.8mn per year of spend in the wider local economy, of which £3.9mn per year will be new spending as a direct result of the development. This will benefit existing local businesses and support the High Street which is currently facing long-term decline.

The new business spaces will be provided in The Every Hall, the Foundry Workshops, again making use of the existing structures of the old Phoenix Ironworks buildings, as well as in ground floor locations around the neighbourhood. These spaces will be available to local businesses, allowing them to grow and develop. By providing multiple spaces for enterprise from home and co-working, studios, hybrid social spaces, makers’ spaces, events and meetings spaces, Human Nature will stimulate a local enterprise culture, supported by expert business support to startups who will benefit from the experience of existing, successful local businesses. In this way, Human Nature will contribute to “Community Wealth Building” in Lewes, in line with Lewes District Council’s Corporate Plan. This will ensure that local investment leads to local job creation, develop local skills, supply chains and employment through partnership working with existing businesses and East Sussex College group as the leading provider of post-16 education in the District.

It is expected that 525 people will be employed during the construction phase, of which 173 will be new jobs. Many of these jobs will be available for local people through the development of a direct labour force.

There will be an on-site factory creating the timber framed cassettes that will be used to make the new buildings using local timber, with the local labour force being trained in modern methods of construction through a partnership with East Sussex College and working with local green construction businesses such as Kind Construction who are already based on the site. The College already has teaching facilities at the Phoenix and the new courses in green construction are due to start in early 2023.

Health and wellbeing

Life at the Phoenix will support the health and wellbeing of the new residents as well as for residents of the wider town. There are six areas in which there is strong evidence of how the built environment affects our health (Marmot Review, NICE, 2010) to which the Phoenix responds. Pollution – the low car neighbourhood will have a positive impact on air quality thus having a positive impact on the health of the residents, reducing the incidence of cardio-respiratory disease in particular.

Green/open space – the provision of gardens and green spaces in the neighbourhood, including areas of communal garden, roof gardens and green walkways, are associated with reductions in blood pressure and improved mental health as a result of increased levels of physical activity.

Transport – there is strong evidence that low-car neighbourhoods are safer, significantly reducing deaths from road traffic accidents amongst children, and that by encouraging cycling and walking they have a positive impact on physical health. The whole mobility strategy for the site is focused on promoting active modes of travel, creating safe streets for pedestrians and people with disabilities, and linking into the existing walking, cycling and wheeling networks in the wider town.

Food - there is good evidence that local access to healthy food improves diets. The community canteen and community food growing initiatives will provide good, simple, local food at affordable prices.

Housing - there is a strong association between poor quality, badly insulated homes, and a range of negative outcomes across several domains, including health, education, self-efficacy and income. The proposed homes will be affordable to a wide range of the local population, built to the highest standard, with low energy bills and running costs, thus contributing to a higher quality of life for those living in our neighbourhood. Additionally, indoor air quality will be improved through the use of natural interior finishes such as clay, lime and timber, and there will be a reduction in the prospect of heat-related deaths as a result of careful design to reduce the possibility of over-heating during the summer. The use of hygroscopic materials such as hemp, clay/lime and timber will serve to regulate moisture, preventing damp and the potential associated respiratory illnesses.

Community Participation and Social Isolation – the neighbourhood will be safe by design, encouraging social mixing in the community gardens, streets and in the community facilities such as the event space and the work spaces. The evidence shows that this will reduce incidence of social isolation, depression and loneliness with a significant reduction in dementia amongst the older population as well as mortality.

In addition, the new neighbourhood will host the main primary care facility for the town in the new Health Centre. The local GP practices are already considering how their services can be made more accessible to local people through this development, thus improving the community health service to the town as a whole.

Creating fun

The Phoenix will provide a range of opportunities for fun, aimed at people of all ages and enthusiasms.

Opening on to the Soap Yard, a new public space, will be a family-friendly sports and wellness centre in The Soap Factory, once home to John Gosnell soap manufacturers. It will particularly appeal to the interests of children, teenagers and young adults – groups not always well catered for in Lewes. We are working with partners to explore the inclusion of music studios, a juice bar, fitness rooms, an indoor skatepark and bouldering centre.

An event and performance space will be provided in the Foundry Yards Gallery, which together with the new public Foundry Yards and the Soap Yard will provide opportunities for larger scale outdoor and indoor events and exhibitions for the enjoyment of Phoenix residents as well as the residents of Lewes and beyond. This will build on the recent history of the Phoenix as a place where young people in particular were able to enjoy a wide range of entertainments that are not provided for in the existing town.

By giving access to the river from a boathouse and slipway at the end of Phoenix Place, and a pontoon from the Foundry Yards, the new neighbourhood will create the opportunity for people to enjoy boating on the river.

How will all this happen?

Human Nature is committed to the long-term stewardship of the Phoenix. This means that Human Nature will set up an Estate Management Company that will maintain all the common spaces on the site as well as managing all the residential and commercial leases. This company will have representation from residents and tenants on the board, ensuring that the neighbourhood is focused on the needs of those who live and work at the Phoenix.

Human Nature is also currently establishing a number of venture companies to run the services on the site, including the co-mobility services, the Energy Service, the Community

Canteen, and the Reuse Centre. These ventures are again part of Human Nature’s commitment to the long-term stewardship of the neighbourhood and its way of life. The Phoenix will be a place where people can live well in a way that is also good for the planet, responding to the global challenges of finite resources, ecological and climate change, and the increasing cost of living, by supporting a way of life that promotes wellbeing, reduces consumption and is affordable for everyone.

“Via the creation of, inter alia, and in combination: new homes, mass timber engineering for buildings and the use of other biomaterials, renewable energy infrastructures, co-mobility services, efficient and human-scale apartment blocks with shared facilities, superb streets and public spaces, abundant greenery, and new creative and circular economy enterprises, the Phoenix will be an exemplar of the actions needed to create a safe and in very many ways far better world. And many of these same actions will serve simultaneously to grow stronger neighbourly connections, community spirit and intentionality while regenerating nature on and off site.”

The proposals in this DAS collectively represent a new way of designing and building a neighbourhood and not just for a wickedly demanding brownfield site. Phoenix will be intrinsically sustainable in its fabric and infrastructures and handsome in form and texture. Crucially, it is conceived and designed to become a crucible for new and better ways of living. These actions, achieved together in this one place, can serve to regenerate climate, nature and community. Without this trinity there can be no justification for large-scale development at this moment in the 21st century.

This new neighbourhood will be open and inviting to all, promoting a culture of sharing. It looks towards how we can act together to flourish, in a just transition to a new far fairer society and more productive circular and creative economy, while treading lightly on the earth.

It goes without saying that none of this is easy. But if it can’t be done here, in Lewes, in a National Park, and with the empathy and practical support of the excellent body politic and the engaged and the talented civil society of this town, arguably it cannot be done anywhere.

We greatly look forward to working closely with our friends and partners in public and community bodies, and alongside businesses of all kinds and at all scales to fulfil the potential of this scheme. It is the quality of these relationships that give this the best chance of going beyond business as usual –practices that are trashing our environment, dividing communities and standing in the way of new forms of progress.