Following feedback from some residents, the retrofit proposals for West Kentish Town Estate have been modified. The overall retrofit strategy developed in 2020 by AAB architects (as part of a RIBA-funded research project) remains the same. The changes include:
- Changing the colour of the metal cladding to the extra storey to blend in better with the colour of the hanging tiles, to give a more unified appearance
- Enclosed, fire-resisting stairways to provide protected means of escape
- More generous and welcoming canopies, with external post boxes
The Residents Brief for larger, more accessible homes could be achieved with a retrofit scheme, with new blocks of flats on the sites of the old garages.
The retrofit and infil scheme would be much cheaper and easier to build than the new-build scheme (£154m compared with £608m), and much quicker (10 years instead of 19 years):
The environmental harm caused by a retrofit scheme would be much less than the demolition and rebuild scheme. The carbon footprint would be 1/5 and most of the trees and green space would be kept.
West Kentish Town 