Centenary Quay

The Centenary Quay development is the regeneration of a strategic riverside site of a former shipyard in Woolston, Southampton. The development is to include ca. 1,600 residential dwellings, associated commercial development and significant green infrastructure provision. At one stage the scheme also included for the design and delivery of a new dockyard for yachts with an associated pontoons.

For over a decade we have been ecological advisers on this site from baseline survey, through planning and subsequent detailed design and construction.

We authored the ecology chapter of the Environmental Statement, for which we undertook detailed ecological surveys including for uncommon flora, terrestrial and marine invertebrates, reptiles, breeding, wintering and passage birds, as well as bats. Key to the successful determination of the planning application for this site was our work in assessing and mitigating for any potential adverse effects on the adjacent Special Protection Area (SPA).

We produced a Statement to Inform Appropriate Assessment and a Bird Strike Risk Assessment as a part of this work. We also produced the full Construction Environmental Management Plan (CEMP) for the site enabling works in collaboration with the project engineers.

Our ecological advice role has continued through inputs to Reserved Matters Applications, and by contributing to the detailed ecological design and contributing to a long-term Landscape Management Plan and CEMP for each development phase. We have sought to maximise value both for native biodiversity and for the provision of urban ecosystem services; securing as many ecological credits for BREEAM and Code for Sustainable Homes assessments as possible. We continue to undertake daytime and nocturnal monitoring of local components of the SPA bird populations and are leading on the design of the content of environmental information in the form both of signage and information brochures for residents and visitors.

Our creative ecological inputs have included providing assistance with the ecomasterplanning of the entire site. We have undertaken the ecological design of analogues of vegetated shingle beaches and coastal woodland, biodiverse living (green) roofs and facades, extensive formal but biodiverse communal gardens and streetscapes and sensitively incorporated faunal refuges.

A fly through featuring some (by no means all) of the landscape and ecological interventions can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBm1pTNA8n0