Dahlia House, Burnage Lane

This £8million development situated in Burnage, south of Manchester, has transformed a brownfield former industrial laundry site in Burnage into 56 Age-Friendly apartments for social rent for people over 55. Occupants will also have access to a flexible range of on-site care packages and support, depending on their current and future needs.

Dahlia House is the second of Southway’s ‘With Care’ developments to be completed in recent months, following the opening last year of Gorton Mill House.

The environmentally friendly scheme in Burnage Lane has 34 one-bedroom homes and 22 two-bedroom homes. There is also a community café for both residents and the public, a communal lounge, scooter room, landscaped gardens and assisted bathroom, as well as offices and meeting space.

Our building and energy modelling team developed the M&E servicing strategy for the development, which utilises ground source heat via a network of 120-metre-deep external boreholes. This groundwater is then circulated to individual heat pump units providing each dwelling with low energy, low carbon heating, and hot domestic water. Our team acted as the client’s technical advisor and oversaw the detailed design and build of the new development that was handed over in January 2022.

Utilising low carbon technologies and constructing the building to high standards of thermal performance and airtightness has resulted in each dwelling achieving on average a 44% reduction in carbon emissions compared to the building regulation “notional building”.