Since last year’s new settlement fiasco – when the Secretary of State for the Environment (at that time Michael Heseltine) rejected all eight planning applications for a new settlement of 3,000 houses east or west of Cambridge along the A45, as well as all four applications for one north of Cambridge along the A10 – it has been assumed that the Government is against new settlements.
This feeling was reinforced last month when the present Secretary of State, Michael Howard, in his proposed modifications to Hampshire’s draft structure plan, found no need for any of the four new settlements proposed by developers.
However, the future is brighter than it might appear for new settlements – provided that they are in accordance with proposals in local development plans. In Cambridgeshire, for example, one of the eight applications along the A45 corridor was that to the west of Cambridge, centred on the 300-acre Great Common Farm owned by the University of Manchester. Another was 700 acres of Fenland owned by two local farmers, which includes the derelict Bourne airfield.
Manchester University and its development partner, Stanhope Properties, put in an application for 3,000 houses, an 18-hole golf course and a 70-acre business park of 1m sq ft to rival Cambridge Science Park. Although this was the only one of the A45 applications to find favour with the planning inspector, it was rejected by the Secretary of State solely on the grounds that the business park was far larger than the 50 acres specified in the local plan, which opened the door to a revised application.
Stanhope has now made an application to South Cambridgeshire District Council for 3,000 homes and a business park of 50 acres – and has launched a legal action in the High Court to challenge the Secretary of State’s decision that a 70-acre park would be excessive. Approval for the smaller scheme is expected later this year.
North of Cambridge, the application for a new town of 1,500 homes called Westmere, to be constructed on 350 acres of unprepossessing farmland near the Fenland village of Wilburton, would have been acceptable to the county and the Secretary of State had the developer been willing to create a grade-separated interchange on the A12, as required by the Department of Transport.
The developer was Consortium Developments, the association of 10 major housebuilders (Barratt, Beazer, Bovis, Ideal Homes, Laing, Lovell, McCarthy & Stone, Tarmac, Wilcon and Wimpey) whose proposals for six other new towns had all been refused (though the late Nicholas Ridley was “minded to approve” Foxley Wood in Hampshire when he was Environment Secretary, but his successor, Chris Patten, threw it out).
Faced with such a negative planning climate, the consortium suspended its activities two years ago. Now, however, there is speculation that new proposals for Westmere will be submitted to East Cambridge DC shortly, incorporating a grade-separated interchange.
It is also possiblle that CDL’s proposals for Foxley Wood may be revived. Certainly Eagle Star has not abandoned its plans for a new market town of 5,000 homes at Micheldever Station. Its masterplanner, co-ordinating and landscape architect the Barton Willmore Partnership, says that the county has to consider the role of new settlements in its review of Hampshire’s structure plan for 2001-2011.
While controversial major developments which do not conform to local structure plans attract considerable publicity, remarkably little is heard about successful new settlements that have been approved. In recent years, these have included Lower Earley near Reading, South Woodham Ferrers in Essex and Chelmer Village in Essex.
Chelmer Village is a thriving community of more than 2,500 homes on 350 acres of land on the edge of Chelmsford. Originally conceived in 1976 by Countryside Properties, which will complete the last of its 2,000 houses here this year, it has been the responsibility since 1980 of Trisha Gupta, an architect and main board director of Countryside. Chelmer Village also includes council housing, housing association schemes and old people’s housing. Countryside controlled only two-thirds of the land; the rest was sold to other developers such as Moody Homes and Galliford Sears. Countryside also developed a 180,000-sq ft retail park.
Countryside Properties is now developing Church Langley (formerly known as Brenthall Park) on 400 acres on the eastern edge of Harlow, Essex. It first obtained options from local landowners in 1984, but did not receive planning permission until February 1988, and it was not until the end of 1990 that the purchase of the site was completed (as negotiations took place in a falling market). The first houses were released for sale last May.
Church Langley was planned to be developed by Countryside in a joint venture with Wates and Croudace, but Wates pulled out at the end of 1991 and was replaced by Woolwich Homes. These three developers will each build 940 homes during the next 10 years, and another 700 will be constructed by Lovell Homes and McLean Homes, making more than 3,500 homes in total.
Last month, Countryside Properties started work on its latest new settlement in Essex. Great Notley Garden Village, near Braintree, on the site of a former US Air Force hospital, was known as White Court West when Andrew Martin Associates prepared the original masterplan in 1986. After lengthy public consultation exercises between 1987 and 1990, the scheme was redesigned with the help of Broadway Malyan, and consent was finally obtained in December 1991 for 2,000 homes, a business park of 400,000 sq ft (designed by Arup Associates), shops, a hotel, sports and leisure facilities, plus 180 acres of country park, open space and woodland.
In addition, Countryside is about to start work on the first of 1,500 homes at Chatham Maritime, Kent, in a joint venture with English Estates, the landowner, and last July it obtained consent for 900 homes on a 240-acre site at Thorley, near Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire. It is also planning to build 750 homes on the former airfield at West Malling, Kent, as part of the mixed-use Kings Hill development of 650 acres by US developer Rouse & Associates, where up to 3m sq ft of business space is proposed. Next month, a planning inquiry starts into Countryside’s plans for 1,300 houses on 300 acres at Takeley, Essex.
The Secretary of State recently gave planning approval for Dickens Heath, a new settlement of 1,100 homes on 120 acres near Solihull, West Midlands, which is to be developed by a consortium of Redrow, Berkeley, Trencherwood and Bryant. The Barton Willmore Partnership, which is now preparing the masterplan for submission to the local council later this year, has also obtained consent for more than 1,000 houses to be built on the old MOD depot at Hinton, Derbyshire.
Last month, more than five years after the model village of Poundbury on the outskirts of Dorchester was first proposed by the Duchy of Cornwall, a planning application was made for the first 61 houses. It is not generally realised that Poundbury may have as many as 3,000 houses by the time it is complete.
Having taken eight years to gain planning approval, Crest Nicholson and Prowting Homes are about to start work on their new settlement of 3,300 homes at Haydonwick Farm, on the northern outskirts of Swindon, Wiltshire.
Peterborough New Town was designated in 1967, but, when its development corporation was wound up in 1988, only the three townships of Bretton, Orton and Werrington had been constructed. Last month, permission was granted to Peterborough Southern Township (a subsidiary of Hanson) for a fourth township of 5,200 homes, a retail centre and a business park to be built on 2,000 acres of London Brick’s claypits. Sites are now being marketed to developers.
Although Michael Howard announced last month that sites for more than 100,000 new homes have been identified in the East Thames Corridor, the suggestion that this will be a new city is far from the truth, though Blue Circle Properties (the developer of Chafford Hundred) has proposed a new town of up to 12,500 homes to be erected on a 2,500-acre site which it owns near Dartford, Kent. But the largest new settlement currently being developed is Bradley Stoke, near Bristol, where more than 3,500 of the 8,500 homes planned have been completed by 19 developers.
Michael Hanson BSc is a freelance writer on property and architecture.
