Welcome To Jhera

Sustainable Community Project

As part of the sustainable community project, we have looked at how to prevent the high turnover of families leaving the estate because of the lack of space in the houses, because this is beginning to erode the community. In May 2003, local architects Patrick Theis and Soraya Khan proposed a solution, which was to create a sympathetic roof level extension that would enhance the neighbourhood and increase housing density.

In September 2003 a questionnaire was distributed to all 321 houses on the estate to assess whether residents were in favour of pursuing the idea. The results were analysed at the Max Lock Centre, which specializes in community led projects, at Westminster University. The analysis showed that the majority of respondents were in support of the roof level extension. The elected committee of JHERA set up a sub-committee, which collated all the information and considered the options. A final design was proposed that would enhance the existing buildings as well as offer an opportunity to implement environmental options, often only associated with new builds, such as:

* Green roof – extension to have a sedum roof to insulate and maintain biodiversity and water levels
* Insulation – extension to be highly insulated, ways of improving existing / adding insulation to existing building and secondary glazing.
* Grey water recycling – using rainwater from roof and shower / bath water for WC flushing and garden watering.
* Passive solar heating - south facing glazing to help winter heating also with shading to prevent summer overheating.

The design is a uniform, modern, environmentally-friendly roof level extension which optimises the existing buildings and would maintain the uniqueness of the neighbourhood. Full details are available to read in the report. (Click here to download PDF)

With overwhelming local support for the idea, it is the intention to seek the London Borough of Tower Hamlets’ approval for a combined residents’ planning application. To gain additional support for the project, the design will be submitted to Tower Hamlets Conservation Advisory Group and the GLA.

In order to evaluate the carbon savings potentially made by the roof extension pod and to fulfil a request for information from the GLA, we ask residents to supply details of their annual energy consumption on the questionnaire circulated with the July newsletter and return it to Wanda Briggs at 84 Barnet Grove. All information will be anonymous. For our own information purposes, and to ensure we are getting a representative cross section of replies, we do need a few personal details but these are for our own records only.