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LUXURY DEVELOPMENTS PROJECT REPORT
Pastures new A
Working closely with architects, Q New Homes transformed a redundant dairy farm on the Kent/East Sussex border into a high spec, highly sustainable development, within strict constraints. Roseanne Field reports.
development on a disused dairy farm littered with dilapidated buildings, within the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, under a local authority with strict agricultural building reuse policies, was never going to be straightforward.
And yet developer (and main contractor) Q New Homes working with architects Nissen Richards Studio not only achieved it, but have built a development of nine homes that considerably surpass typical sustainability and specifi cation standards The 40 acre site in the village of Cowden had been owned and used by several generations of the same family of dairy farmers, until the death of the last farmer in 2017 also saw its agricultural use cease. By this point many of the site’s buildings – which included ageing dairy buildings, Dutch barns, sheds and lean-tos, accumulated incrementally over many decades – had already fallen into disrepair.
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The site subsequently gradually fell into further disrepair, before Q New Homes – a London-based private developer founded in 2012 by brothers Damien and Michael Wynne – bought it with an existing planning consent in place for a residential scheme, granted in January 2021. The developer appointed Nissen Richards Studio in May 2021 to replace the consented scheme with a “more ambitious architectural proposal,” explains Nissen Richards Studio director, Jim Richards. However, the development was also subject to Sevenoaks Council’s strict planning policies regarding the reuse of agricultural buildings.
A COMPLICATED SITE
Any new homes on the site had to retain the existing structure of 10 of the buildings – nine former agricultural buildings and the farmhouse – while some of the smaller additional buildings could be demolished.
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