The greenest building is the one that already exists

Posted by Derek Mason

22nd October 2024

Picture caption: Rosefield Mills, Dumfries. Picture credit: Andrew Hall on Unsplash

“The greenest building is the one that already exists” according to Historic England’s newly published document, “Heritage Works for Housing”. One could argue that historic buildings often lack insulation and other features that might make them “green” but reuse and refurbishment mean capitalising on existing embodied carbon, so this will certainly help with the UK’s low carbon goals.

The document provides guidance for transforming a historic building to enable residential use: from technical considerations to case studies to illustrate potential approaches to refurbishment.

Historic England estimates that repurposing empty historic buildings could provide up to 670,000 new homes, with the redundant textile mills of Yorkshire and Lancashire alone providing up to 42,000 new homes.

While refurbishment is undoubtedly expensive, properties close to a listed building can be worth up to 10% more, so there is potential for greater profitability both in and around historic buildings that are brought into residential use.

Transforming an overgrown or partially derelict site into housing can also act as a catalyst for change and regeneration in surrounding areas. Older buildings are often much-loved by local people, and bringing them back into use helps to foster civic pride.

One example given in the Historic England Guide is the Wood Street Townhouses development in Manchester city centre, which involved converting an 1870s Mission building and creating a new-build element on an adjacent car park. As this was a small development of five homes – three in the non-designated heritage building and two in the new building – the new-build component was required to make this economically viable.

This is the kind of compromise that’s needed and hopefully we’ll see more of these kinds of schemes, as well as the larger renovation projects.

Practically speaking, the Historic England document is a good starting point, covering every step of the process from ‘buying’ the historic building right through to providing a new homeowner pack so residents are clear on the changes they can make without planning approval.

Given the current challenges in the housing market, and the fact that many of our historic buildings are slowly decaying, it would be good to see more of these properties being given a new lease of life. It will, however, require serious investment and potentially some tax incentives or grant funding if this bold ambition is to be realised.

What do you think? Will developers be tempted to work on more of these projects, or will it take more than a guide for this vision to become a reality?

Meanwhile, if you need any assistance with the structural elements of an upcoming project, please do get in touch.

On the subject of historic buildings, we’ve helped our clients convert Grade II listed buildings before now. It can often take a little innovation and creativity to open a historic building up, from a structural perspective, but it can be done – and the results can be pretty spectacular.

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