About our Village Hall

The parish of Highwood in the constituency of Chelmsford Rural West may be relatively small, but our legacy is that as a community we worked very hard together to design, fund raise and build one of the most environmentally sustainable village halls in the UK.

Furthermore, through its provision residents have set-up outstanding community groups such as our Catch-Up Café, the Highwood Community Choir and a range of other leisure activities and education classes. Highwood residents now organise and hold annual community litter picks, have celebrated the Jubilee with a magnificent street party, perform at regular ticketed events to raise funds for those in-need within our community and network with statutory bodies to bring satellite provisions directly to residents e.g. mobile information network and winter flu jabs for the vulnerable.

Highwood is now seen by many as an exemplar of how working TOGETHER residents can build unity; it’s a community that we are so proud to be part of!

Our Building is a flagship because it was the 1st in the UK to be designed and built to Passivhaus principles the leading international design standard for low energy sustainable buildings.

Many of us live in Highwood because we enjoy the beautiful landscape.  A significant proportion of our Parish is covered with precious ancient woodland.  Because the environment is important to residents we wanted to do our best to build a new community building with minimal impact on the local and global environment.

Energy Efficient –

  • The building has been designed to Passivhaus principles, the leading international design standard for low energy sustainable buildings. With a passivhaus building instead of just insulating the walls and lofts, the insulating layer is continuous. The emphasis is on super-insulation and stringent levels of air-tightness to create minimal thermal bridging like a ‘tea-cosy effect’.
  • The Village Hall has been sited to optimise heat and light from the sun (passive solar gain).  As a result traditional space heating requirements are minimised. To supply the building with a constant and comfortable air temperature, a demand controlled mechanical ventilation and heat-recovery system (MVHR) is used.

Water Efficient –

  • Energy is used in processing mains water. By harvesting and recycling water from the roof for the community garden the Village Hall saves the energy.
  • The recycled plastic grid used over vehicle access areas allows the grass to grow through maximising noise absorption and letting the rain soak away naturally without it having to be processed by mains drainage.
  • To reduce water usage there are supply flow rate restrictors on the taps and flushes in the lavatories.

Material Efficient –

  • Where possible, materials in the Village Hall are natural, recycled or reused with low embodied energy and zero ozone depletion potential.
  • Where plastics have been used, we have gone to extensive effort to ensure the maximum recycled content, enabling these products to be recyclable in the future. For example, the grid car parking blocks are made from 100% recycled plastic, the wood is FSC approved and the earth dug for the foundations has been reused in the landscaping.
  • The plastic surfaces are made entirely from recycled crushed and pressed plastic bottles. You can see them on our lavatory doors! Materials have been specifically selected to minimise emissions of VOC’s (volatile organic compounds) gases that can be emitted from products such as paints, lacquers, furnishings etc.
  • Within the Village Hall we provide recycling bins and encourage re-use and repair initiatives specifically:- Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Recycle.

Micro-generation –

  • The roof has been angled towards the sun for the renewable micro-generation technologies.  As a large proportion of our energy demand is electricity, our ‘Photovoltaic’ (PV) cells use energy from the sun to convert solar radiation into electricity, surplus electricity is sold back to the National Grid to generate additional income.
  • The ‘Solar Panels’ heat the hot water for users and the heating system.
  • An ‘Air Source Heat Pump’ extracts heat from the outside air which is used to provide the heat for the under floor heating to the main hall.

Green Landscaping –

  • For boundary segregation we have planted hedges instead of fences to provide new habitat for wildlife that can so often be displaced by development.
  • The external infrastructure of the building incorporates bird, bat and insect boxes.
  • A wire curtain on the tallest side of the building is planted with climbing plants that provide colour throughout the year and creates a green wall to help blend the building with the landscape.
  • The Highwood Village Hall Community Garden has been designed utilising the ideas of the local community together with expert design advice and planting support from Writtle School of Design, Chelmsford City Council, Studio Thadian Pillai and The Woodland Trust Jubilee Woods Project.
  • Mini Orchard of Native Essex Fruit Trees.  In the last 60 years Essex has lost acres of orchards to urbanisation, or to be replaced by more profitable arable crops. We wanted to bring back some of Essex’s native fruit trees for future generations to enjoy so have planted a 12 fruit tree orchard.   Varieties in our mini orchard have been carefully sourced to include:-
    1. D’Arcy Spice a dessert apple, found at Tolleshunt D’Arcy Hall in Essex about 1785 originally sold as ‘Baddow Pippin’.
    2. Chelmsford Wonder a culinary yellow apple from Chelmsford Essex c1870.
    3. Johnny Mount Pear a dessert green pear from Colchester Essex pre 1900.
    4. Eros a dessert flushed red apple from Boreham’s WP Seabrook Nurseries 1947.
    5. Discovery a dessert apple from Langham Essex in 1949.
  •  Native Wildlife Hedgerow.  According to the RSPB since World War II, hedgerows have been removed at a much faster rate than they have been planted. The loss of hedgerows has been identified as a factor in the decline of many plant and animal species traditionally associated with farmland.  On a community planting day we planted our boundaries with new hedgerow.
  • Bee & Butterfly Wildflower Meadow.  Under the orchard we have seeded a wildflower meadow with a mix of native wildflower species and grass species. Wildflower meadows are one of the UK’s most threatened habitats and in the past 70 years 97% have been lost resulting in the decline of the wildlife that depends on them. Wildflower meadows are an important habitat for many species of insect, bird and mammal.  Whether they are used as a shelter for some animals, or as a source of food for others, they are vital in maintaining our British wildlife.

Awards

  1. In Feb 2009, thanks to a nomination from Councillor Nicolette Chambers, the Mayor of Chelmsford Borough Council, Councillor Tom Willis gave the project and fundraising work of Petra Pipkin an ‘Outstanding Achievement Award’ at the Community Awards.
  2. In 2011 after the opening of the new Village Hall, the Mayor of Chelmsford Borough Council,  Cllr. Bob Shepherd MBE presented the HIGHWOOD VILLAGE HALL COMMITTEE with a COMMUNITY AWARD “in recognition of its environmentally, friendly and inspirational community facility.
  3. In November 2011 the Village Hall Committee were delighted to receive a Certificate of Merit from grant provider “Essex Environment Trust” for “one of the best projects ever built in Essex with the Trust’s assistance“.