BREEAM, Commercial & Retail, Sustainability case study

Westgate Shopping Centre, Oxford

Background

Westgate Shopping Centre in Oxford is home to prestigious global brands, eclectic restaurants and cafes, leisure, and sophisticated rooftop bars and dining. The shopping centre contains 5 retail blocks (Blocks 1, 2, 3 East, 3 West and 4) including a multi-screen cinema and 1 residential block containing 59 luxury apartments. The scheme included the refurbishment of the previously existing Westgate retail development as well as a major new build element. SRL worked with the design and construction teams to achieve both interim and final certification against the following schemes:

  • BREEAM UK New Construction 2011 (Block 1 – John Lewis)
  • BREEAM UK New Construction 2011 (Blocks 2, 3 East and 3 West)
  • BREEAM Bespoke 2008 (Block 4)
  • Code for Sustainable Homes (Residential block)

Challenge

The BREEAM assessments for the development had to achieve a BREEAM “Excellent” rating and Code Level 4 under Code for Sustainable Homes for the residential block. We were appointed by Laing O’Rourke and also worked closely with Land Securities Group plc, the developer, to complete the BREEAM assessments for both the Design and Post Construction stages. As well as providing our assessor service, SRL were also appointed as BREEAM Advisory Professional to provide advice to the design and construction team on how to achieve the most cost effective and appropriate BREEAM credits.

Solution

We successfully worked with Laing O’Rourke, Land Securities Group and the design and construction teams to meet their BREEAM and Code for Sustainable Homes targets. This was done through regular communication, BREEAM Tracker + updates (as well as our own project-specific summary spreadsheets), site visits and the identification of additional credits to target where changes to the design were made which risked previously targeted credits. As with all our other BREEAM projects, we provided letter templates to evidence credits which makes the BREEAM process as seamless as possible for the team.

All residential apartments went on to achieve Code Level 4 under Code for Sustainable Homes. Block 1 achieved a final score and rating of 70.11% (BREEAM “Excellent”), Blocks 2, 3 East and 3 West achieved a final score and rating of 71.90% (BREEAM “Excellent”) and Block 4 achieved a final score and rating of 70.36% (BREEAM “Excellent”).