News & Photos

20 June 2007 - Housing Corporation Gold Awards Update

As one of only six organisations in the country nominated for this year's prestigious Housing Corporation Gold Awards for Environmental Sustainability, we were rather chuffed. However, we were later informed that we had just missed out on the top prize. Although disappointed, this was only short-term as there were some positives to come from our selection.

For example, it showed that in our desire to become a truly 'green' organisation, we were moving in the right direction. Our nomination was greatly encouraging and has given us renewed impetus to continue to build on our experiences to date. We are continuing to share lessons learnt, both internally and externally, to achieve our corporate and environmental/sustainability objectives.

We are also looking at developing another eco park in the not too distant future.

20 February 2007 - Gallions Housing Association short-listed for environmental sustainability gold award

Gallions Housing Association has been short-listed for the Environmental Sustainability Category in this year’s Gold Awards organised by the Housing Corporation.

The category looks at how organisations approach and implement environmental sustainability across all areas of their business activity, not just on a one-off development.

Gallions’ Sustainability Manager, Rebecca Miller, was delighted with the news. She said: “It really is a great achievement to be short listed. Gallions has worked hard over the past few years to cement our dedication to being at the forefront of environmental sustainability, our selection as a finalist proves that we have done this.”

A total of twenty nine entries were received for the category and finally whittled down to six. The winner will be announced on 24 May 2007 and given £50,000 prize money to spend on disseminating best practice over the next twelve months.

04 March 2005 - Award for Water Saving Excellence goes to Gallions Ecopark

Gallions Housing Association’s Ecopark development in Thamesmead, south-east London was yesterday (3rd March) named joint winner of the ODPM’s Construction and Renovation Category at this year’s Water Efficiency Awards sponsored by the Environment Agency.

Features such as rainwater harvesting units, spray taps, ultra low-flush toilets, low consumption baths and showers, along with grey-water recycling have produced an almost 30% reduction on water consumption based on the UK average.
The awards, now in their fourth year seek to recognise and reward the work of organisations helping to conserve water resources showing by example what being water-efficient means in practice - and how quickly such initiatives can pay for themselves and save money.
Submissions were entered from around the country and from the five finalists short-listed for this category Gallions Ecopark along with Beaumont Community Primary School near Ipswich walked away with the recognition for this category.

The Judges’ Panel said, "Ecopark provides an important contribution to the sustainable housing agenda."
Rebecca Miller, Sustainability Manager for Gallions said, ‘ We are delighted to have won in this category, there was some very strong competition, but once again Ecopark has proven that it really is an excellent case study of practical, cost effective environmentally sustainable development.’

20 September 2004 - Visitors flock to award winning Eco Development

Almost 150 people visited the multi-award winning Gallions Ecopark last Saturday when the development of environmentally sustainable homes threw open its doors to members of the community as part of the annual Open House London event.

Between 10am and 2pm, the general public were able to visit Gallions Housing Association’s landmark eco housing scheme and see a practical, affordable model of sustainable development.

Rebecca Miller, Sustainability Manager at Gallions Housing Association said, “It was a really successful day, we had visitors from all over London. People seemed really interested in the houses and wanted to know why more house builders aren’t building houses like these.”

“With the recent news about energy price hikes and the Prime Minister’s comments regarding Global Warming we fielded a lot of questions from people on how they can make their homes more environmentally friendly. People are becoming more and more aware of the importance of energy and water efficiency from both a cost and environmental perspective and the market for these types of homes is definately growing.,” she said.

Open House London is a free annual event in which all sections of the community are invited to participate, more information can be found on their website at www.openhouselondon.org.

Notes to Editors:

Consisting of 39 houses for affordable rent, Gallions Ecopark seeks to concentrate on the details of sustainable construction and design, the scheme provides a model that can be adapted or replicated in future housing developments. An educational and interactive Visitors’ Centre and Naked House showcases selected environmentally sustainable products.

The four house types incorporate different combinations of technologies to reduce the consumption of energy. These include sunrooms, solar collectors for pre-heating domestic water, under floor heating, low temperature heating and individual condensing gas boilers, low flush toilets and water saving taps.

The scheme is being assessed by the project team against the Dutch Green Finance Model, a rating system developed in the Netherlands to assess environmentally friendly schemes.

Gallions Housing Association became a registered social landlord in June 2000 and as the major social landlord in Thamesmead manages over 6000 properties in the area.

Gallions aim is to provide affordable, quality housing and support services in a safe and secure environment.

For further information on the Ecopark and its Visitors’ Centre and Naked House or to book a tour please contact Sundeep Pawar on 020 8320 3479 or via email at spawar@gallionsha.co.uk

Contacts:
Sundeep Pawar - Ecopark Visitors’ Centre Manager - 020 8320 3479
Andy Pennell - Business Development Manager - 020 8320 3436