Karakusevic Carson estate regeneration swaps demolition for infill

Brent Council has dropped proposals to rebuild the St Raphael’s Estate in north-west London in favour of an infill proposal that will deliver up to 380 additional homes without demolishing any existing stockKarakusevic Carson Architects was appointed to the project in 2019 and drew up plans for both a complete redevelopment of the 760-home estate, which was built between 1967 and 1982, and an alternative infill scheme.In a letter to residents last week, Brent Council leader Muhammed Butt said the council now believed only the infill proposals were affordable and that the wholesale redevelopment plan would not be presented to residents in a ballot on the estate’s future.Butt said the decision was ‘due to a number of factors, including uncertainty around the future availability of funding from the government’.Campaign group Architects for Social Housing (ASH) said it supported Brent’s decision but expressed concern that the authority’s Infill Plus plans appeared not to cover the refurbishment of the estate’s current homes.It said alternative infill proposals drawn up by the campaign group would refurbish the existing properties and deliver 608 new homes.Geraldine Dening of ASH said Brent Council should be ‘commended for coming to its senses’ and making the right decision for residents of St Raphael’s Estate.ASH’s alternative proposals also included an embodied carbon estimate of the regeneration masterplan and the infill masterplan that was produced by the Model Environments consultancy. It said demolishing and replacing St Raphael’s Estate with a development of around 2,000 new homes would have a carbon cost of 100,000 tonnes of CO2.The consultancy said the embodied carbon cost of ASH’s infill scheme would be around 17,000 tonnes of CO2.The AJ understands Karakusevic Carson is currently testing initial ideas for the first phase of infill homes that Brent is now planning for St Raphael’s Estate.Brent’s latest newsletter on the proposals says the authority expects to submit a planning application for the first phase of Infill Plus in spring next year and for construction work to start in 2023 for completion in spring 2026.St Raphael’s Estate, which straddles the Neasden and Stonebridge areas, was the childhood home of England and Manchester City footballer Raheem Sterling.