Located on the former site of an 18th century military barracks, the Kitchener Barracks project involves the construction of 300 residential units and is being delivered using advanced modular technology from TopHat.
With the 300-year-old Napoleonic Fortress, Fort Amherst, located at the entrance to the gated development, the site blends its historic military heritage with contemporary modular homes. Surrounded by 70 hectares of green space at Great Line Heritage Park and with some apartments overlooking the meandering River Medway, Kitchener Barracks benefits from a picturesque location. Just a five-minute cycle away, Chatham rail station brings offers services to London St Pancras in as little as 38 minutes, ideal for commuters.
The homes are a mixture of one and two-bedroom apartments and two-, three-, four- and five-bedroom houses. All houses are either delivered to national space standards or above and all significantly exceed the requirements of Part L, which stipulates that newbuild homes built from last year much achieve a 31% reduction in carbon emissions.
The project is a development owned by TopHat and being delivered as a turnkey solution by TopHat Communities under a D&B JCT contract with the development SPV. The site involves the delivery of over 600 modules, across each of the different house types and phases.
One of the challenges faced was the significant fall from the top to the bottom of the site. It has therefore been essential that the phasing and sequencing is cognisant of the site terrain. The project is being delivered in various phases, with Phases 1 and 2 now complete and Phase 3 due to complete in November 2023. The site also includes a heritage building, which TopHat is developing as part of the current works, demonstrating our ability to take on more complex sites than most offsite manufacturers.
All completed units have been sold by TopHat with 13 major high street mortgage lenders providing funding. The sales point of Kitchener Barracks has exceeded other local developments. The houses have been delivered to an outstanding airtightness, with less than 1m3/hr/m2@50pa being achieved in some of the homes. This has been achieved using triple glazing and exceptionally high levels of insulation.
The homes have been delivered with a number of environmentally efficient technologies, including MVHR systems and wastewater heat recovery. This is in addition to the exceptional airtightness. Therefore, the completed units have all received excellent EPC scores. Most recently, TopHat announced they had sold 32 of development's apartments to St. Arthur Homes' shared ownership portfolio.
TopHat is a leading 3D modular housebuilder which has recently announced it is building Europe's largest homebuilding factory. Homes at Kitchener Barracks are being manufactured in TopHat's existing factory at Foston in Derby where robotics and lean manufacturing techniques are used to increase housing supply, improve quality, reduce costs, and protect the environment.
TopHat's new 650,000sq ft facility will be capable of delivery one-home-anhour. The factory will bring together the latest robotics and TopHat's proprietary technology to manufacture and distribute up to 4,000 beautiful homes per year. One thousand new, green economy jobs across a wide range of roles will be created and a training academy will be established in partnership with local colleges. The new Corby facility will be the anchor tenant in the new Magna Park site being developed by GLP, the leading global logistics development manager, as part of a multi-millionpound investment in the site.
Construction will begin later in the year, with the facility expected to be delivering its first homes by the end of 2023.
For more information visit: www.tophat.io
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