Related Argent is creating a ‘flourishing index’ to test how its efforts to concentrate on sustainability, health and wellbeing play out in its development of Brent Cross Town.

The developer is working with Buro Happold and the University of Manchester on a series of measures including air quality, baselining them before development, in a bid to show how its approach to healthy living in the new scheme may bear fruit.

At an On Location event based in the development’s Moxon Architects-designed timber visitor centre last week, the firm’s partner Morwenna Hall said that along with establishing a net zero pledge ‘permeating across everything it does’, this new work was ‘more than happiness and life satisfaction’. The new measures also relate to physical connectivity with items like a new Thameslink station at the entrance to the city, walking and cycling routes, and even a sound and music strategy for the area that was exemplified at the conference by birdsong.

Nick Wicks from the developer elaborated that the work will draw on existing data and mobile observations of the way people move in public realm areas, as well as data drawn from air quality sensors, to get a ‘holistic picture of wellbeing of the community’. 

The work so far had already drawn some interesting findings, such as that there is a stronger than average sense of community in the area – but also that people were not, currently, ‘flourishing’.

The conference was kicked off by Related Argent partner Andre Gibbs, who spelled out how transport was key, that Brent Cross is a well-connected development, and that here was a place where you could develop offices and people would locate, rather than risk becoming a ‘dormitory’. But the biggest challenge facing the developer was embodied carbon, Gibbs said. An energy distribution system produced by Swedish partner firm Vattenfall will help the sustainability push, however, with the area set to be powered by renewable electricity, said the company’s Mike Reynolds.  

Another key partner in the project is Barnet Council, whose Cath Shaw sang the praises of Related Argent for sharing its vision and understanding the needs of the existing community. 

‘They were really committed to the detail of what makes a fantastic place’, she said. ‘We wanted the place to have a real economic heart’.

Other speakers at the event included local school headteacher Elizabeth Rymer, who said the last five years had been ‘fantastic’ as Whitefield School will be placed at the heart of the new town. Sophie Rosier of Savills, meanwhile, said that successful places tend typically to be the most complex. But the benefits of Brent Cross Town were already emerging – connectivity into green space being one, and residential sales so far showing that emerging as a key factor, along with a faith in the developer after Argent’s work at King’s Cross. Rosier added that Related Argent’s early financial commitment and creation of parks had also shown confidence in the area. ‘Not many developers will put such significant commitment up front’, she said. ‘It’s fantastic’.

Finally, Heath Harvey of Related Argent sketched out the scheme’s commitment to the importance of play and sport, with Claremont Park set for completion next month, a new indoor centre and Clitterhouse playing fields nearby set to be transformed with a new pavilion and concentration on participation in sport rather than just watching it. This could attend to issues like childhood obesity – made worse through COVID, and address ‘unacceptable’ gender gaps in access to play. ‘We believe wellness is no longer a category’, said Harvey. ‘It must run through the DNA of places’