Castleoak develops UK's first BREEAM Excellent care home for Barchester

Castleoak, the specialist care development, design and build group, has achieved a BREEAM Excellent rating for Barchester Healthcare’s Wadhurst Manor in East Sussex, making it the UK’s first care home for older people to achieve the highly-respected, internationally-recognised environmental standard.

Wadhurst Manor, a 65-bed care home, was handed over to Barchester Healthcare last September and its development was backed by Bridges Sustainable Property Fund, which requires projects to demonstrate environmental leadership. 

The Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) is an environmental standard that rates the sustainability of buildings, based on scores given against a wide range of areas including energy, transport, water, materials, and waste management. It aims to minimise environmental impact by ensuring sustainability best practices are in place while also lowering running costs through energy efficiency.

The home had met the BREEAM Excellent requirements at design stage and has now achieved official BREEAM Excellent status following the post-construction assessment.

“This is a really significant step for Castleoak, reinforcing our position at the forefront of sustainable development in the care sector,” said Group Innovation Director, Colwyn Knight.

“We’re hopeful this success will be repeated at Juniper House, Brackley, another of our joint venture developments with Bridges Sustainable Property Fund for Barchester Healthcare, which is on track to become the UK’s first PassivHaus care home.”

Barchester Healthcare’s recently appointed Energy and Environment Manager, Ben Collard, is committed to increasing the energy efficiency across Barchester’s portfolio.  He says, “Barchester is pleased to be working with a developer that is as committed to building energy efficient and sustainable care homes as Castleoak is.  We are delighted to offer environmentally aware residents the ability to live in the UK’s first BREEAM Excellent rated care home.”

Sustainable features at Wadhurst Manor include composting and recycling facilities, sustainably-sourced timber, strong day-lighting, low flow taps, energy efficient appliances, low-energy lighting and bat boxes built into the roof.