Street Furniture
All character areas
Due to the sloping nature of the site, there will be a requirement for retaining walls within the public realm. Materials used should reference local materials and reflect the sustainable aspirations of the development.
Suitable walling materials include:
Flint
Kentish Ragstone
Concrete walls
Engineering brick
Flint is a by-product of the chalk quarrying industry. This has traditionally been knapped and used in Kent’s vernacular architecture (1,2).
Kentish Ragstone is quarried locally at the Hermitage quarry. This is the only hard and durable stone in the area and has been used as a building material since Roman times (3). Engineering brick - blue-grey colour references flint and this extremely durable material is available in a versatile range of special shapes (4).
Cement has been manufactured at Ebbsfleet for a very long time. There are aesthetic and structural advantages to this material as it is a versatile median with strong aesthetic links to the pale grey of the chalk cliffs. To cut down the use of cement 60-80% of the cement can be replaced with inert fillers such as pulverised fuel ash and blast furnace slag (5,6).