A NEW housing scheme at the former Ysgol Dyffryn Conwy school in Llanrwst will welcome its most energy-efficient home, an innovative scheme that will be the first of its kind for developers ClwydAlyn Housing.

Work is underway on the fourth and final phase of the site, converting the former school, which is a Grade II listed building, into three apartments (two of which are wheelchair accessible), and the construction of a three-bedroom wheelchair accessible bungalow; the first Beattie Passive House for ClwydAlyn.

The bungalow will be a low-carbon home, which will be built and certified to the energy-efficient Passivhaus standard, providing excellent health and comfort conditions, while using little energy for heating and cooling.

Craig Sparrow, executive director at ClwydAlyn, said: “We’re delighted to be leading on this scheme, which is an historic move for ClwydAlyn as we build our first ever passive home, offering the highest levels of insulation to reduce energy consumption and energy efficiency to minimise carbon emissions and reduce household bills.

“These new homes will be energy-efficient.

“The new apartments will include a range of sustainable technologies, that will reduce heating costs and lower the carbon emissions, and the bungalow will require no heating at all due to its air tightness and the use of passive energy, having the potential of reducing heating requirements by up to 90 per cent

“This scheme is also very timely as the COP26 summit continues in Glasgow, which is addressing the global issue of climate change.

“We recognise that we all have our part to play in tackling this issue and we’re committed to developing more sustainable homes here in North Wales.”

The bungalow, which is in the final stages of completion, will include a Beattie Passive Building System which is an innovative super-insulated timber frame system that incorporates a unique and patented construction method that provides a continuous insulated layer around the core of a timber-framed structure.

The frames and walls for the new bungalow will be made off-site in North Wales by Creating Enterprise, a subsidiary of Cartrefi Conwy, using the Beattie Passive Build system, and the main contractor for the development is NWPS Construction.

Craig Sparrow added: “We’re on an exciting journey here at ClwydAlyn to build low-carbon homes that will help address the current climate crisis we’re facing, as well as provide high quality, affordable homes that will also deliver a key need for housing in the local area.”

Work started on the site on July 2021 and the development is expected to be completed by the spring 2022.

This scheme is part of ClwydAlyn's development programme to deliver a further 1,500 new homes in North Wales by 2025 at an investment of £250million, bringing the total number of homes in management to more than 7,500.