We are delighted to share that plans for our Walsingham Road development in St Andrews, Bristol, have now been approved.
This is a big moment for Greenheart. After many years designing and building sustainable homes for clients, Walsingham Road marks our first step into development: creating the kind of low-energy, carefully considered home we believe should be built- by developers as well as self-builders.
The project has been a long time in the making.
In our earlier post, In Search of a Development Opportunity, we wrote about our ambition to find small sites where Passivhaus, people, planet and profit could be considered together. Walsingham Road became the first real expression of that idea.
When we first introduced the Walsingham Road development, the proposal was for a pair of semi-detached Passivhaus homes. As we later shared in our Spring/Summer Update 2026, the project continued to evolve, and the revised application was resubmitted as a single Passivhaus dwelling.
Now, after working alongside Grassroots Planning Consultancy, the plans have been approved.
For us, that is worth celebrating.
From two homes to one carefully considered Passivhaus home
Walsingham Road has not been a simple, straight-line process.
The site sits in a constrained, sensitive urban setting, between existing church buildings and close neighbours in St Andrews. From the beginning, we saw an opportunity to create high-quality sustainable housing in Bristol, with Passivhaus performance targeted from the outset.
The approved scheme is a compromise on our original ambition of two homes for the plot, but the purpose behind the project remains the same.
We want to show that a low-energy home can be designed with architectural care, practical buildability, cost control and long-term performance all considered from the beginning.
That balance matters. A building can look good on paper, but it also has to be buildable. It has to perform well. It has to make sense financially. It has to sit respectfully within its surroundings.
That is where Greenheart’s experience as a sustainable construction company becomes especially valuable. We are approaching Walsingham Road as developers, but also as builders who understand how early design decisions affect sequencing, workmanship, cost and long-term comfort.
Why Passivhaus still matters
The Walsingham Road home is being developed as a certified Passivhaus.
For us, Passivhaus works best when it informs the design from the beginning. It influences the building fabric, insulation strategy, airtightness, windows, services and the detailed decisions that shape how the home will feel in everyday use.
That was one of the reasons we wanted to take on a development project of our own.
By creating a Passivhaus home for the market, we can demonstrate confidence in the same principles we regularly discuss with clients and self-builders. It gives us the chance to show that high-performance, low-energy housing is not only achievable on a budget, but can actually add value, and is worth pursuing with care.
Materials, buildability and long-term performance
As the project moves into technical design, material choices will become increasingly important.
The sloped and constrained nature of the site means some concrete and masonry will be needed at lower level, but the home is expected to be largely timber frame, with insulation and fabric decisions shaped by performance, practicality and embodied energy.
This is where our wider approach to sustainable materials and techniques becomes part of the Walsingham Road story.
What happens next?
With planning approval now secured, Walsingham Road moves into the next stage.
Technical design is already underway. This includes detailed work on how the home will be built, how costs will be managed, how planning conditions will be discharged, and how we prepare for as efficient and smooth a build as possible.
Passivhaus energy modelling is also continuing through PHPP, helping us evaluate the building fabric and make informed decisions as the design develops.
This stage may be less visible than the finished building, but it is where a great deal of the quality is decided.
Walsingham Road is one home, but it represents something bigger for Greenheart.
It is the first step in a direction we have wanted to explore for a long time: developing sustainable homes ourselves, rather than only building them for clients.
We would love future opportunities to include smaller homes, lower-cost homes, terraces, clusters and small communities. Walsingham Road is not that full vision yet, but it is a meaningful start.
For now, we are pleased to be moving forward with one carefully considered Passivhaus home in Bristol, and grateful to everyone who has helped get the project to this point.
The plans are approved. Greenheart’s first development project can now move into its next chapter.
