Over the summer of 2021 RCKa completed work on a groundbreaking new Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) which has now been formally adopted by Lewisham Council at a meeting of Mayor & Cabinet on 6 October.
Under the recently-adopted London Plan targets, Lewisham must deliver 16,670 new homes over the next decade, 3,790 of which are to be on “small sites”—those with a total area of 0.25ha or less. The SPD sets out a vision for how the council will achieve these ambitious targets, reducing uncertainty within the planning process and achieve good quality, affordable homes across the borough.
Working alongside Ash Sakula architects, RCKa undertook a comprehensive analysis of every ward in Lewisham, examining the different character areas and developing design guides for each of the typical small sites found within them.
As well as providing technical guidance for each site type, the document sets out how potential developments, homeowners and local communities can identify land for small-scale housing development, get the best design in response to potential constraints, address the climate crisis and respond positively to heritage and conservation.
The suite of documents – designed by RCKa’s in-house graphics team – have also been published as a standalone website to ensure they are accessible and intuitive as possible.
Tom Atkinson, Growth and Place Manager from Lewisham’s Housing Growth Team, said:
It was a pleasure to work with Russell and the team and I would recommend them highly. They pushed the boundaries of the brief and delivered a succinct and graphically beautiful document and website that will enable more people to engage with planning and building homes on Small Sites.
Throughout the programme RCKA have been attentive and met deadlines, they have worked hard to overcome difficulties and collaboratively learnt from the wealth of knowledge within the council. They helped us think differently about areas of the project and push what is possible in the design codes. Any Local authority would be lucky to have them as consultants.