Telford Millenium Community Masterplan, JRUD

The outline illustrative masterplan montage

The shared surface street

The shared surface street

The Phase 1 masterplan

The homezone kit of parts

Telford Millennium Community Masterplan and Phase 1 Plan

Jon Rowland Urban Design (JRUD) describes this English Partnerships 
led new housing project

Project Context

Announced by the Government in 1998, the Millennium Communities Programme was set up to explore and demonstrate new approaches to the design of housing and neighbourhoods for the coming century. Telford Millennium Community (TMC) is the fifth in a series of seven Millennium Communities. The Programme aims to raise standards through adherence to a number of criteria with the intention of encouraging a ‘step change’ in the building industry. The schemes also provide practical business models through the application of normal commercial parameters, time scale, cost and market conditions.

As part of the Millennium Programme, the design of each community develops individual and site specific approaches to the following criteria: innovation and distinction, sustainability, consultation, regeneration, ecology, mixed use and links. Critical to the success of this development has been the seamless transition from masterplanning, architecture and detail design. To achieve this, a multi disciplinary team was appointed comprising Capita Symonds, ENTEC, Jon Rowland Urban Design, Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands, Phil Jones Associates, Richard Hodkinson Consultancy, and URBED.

Planning Context and Programme

The site covers 37ha of land in East Ketley Telford, 3km north west of the town centre. The site is characterised by Telford’s industrial history and includes mine shafts, colliery spoil heaps and two recent tips. This has been tempered by the site being left fallow for many decades. The effect has been to transform it into a habitat for a number of protected species including great crested newts, bats, common lizards and several areas of acid grassland. The development of the outline master plan took into account the varied constraints of ecology and topography whilst also examining the impact of integration, creation of routes and access, sub-urban context and characterisation.

The outline application prepared in August 2004 established three character areas: Park View, Green Park and Lake Side. Phase 1 of TMC, is the ‘civic’ area of the site. It has an urban character comprising the main entrance to the development with higher density housing, a civic space and an interface with the Ketley Community Park. The spine road also has a strong landscape structure that reflects the civic nature of the area.

Sustainability

m Community targets and the aspirations of the Programme have been at the heart of the development of Phase 1. As part of this programme, a series of stringent targets have been met by the development, with reduced:

• metered energy consumption by 20 per cent
• embodied energy used in dwellings by 50 per cent
• mains water consumption in the home by 20 per cent
• number of snagging defects recorded at handover,
• average construction waste, plus
• plot and dwelling sizes to conform to the Housing Corporation’s essential ‘Scheme Development Standards’ (SDS)
• facilities within the home for pre-sorting domestic waste for recycling
• improved day lighting and noise proofing by 10 per cent
• accessible IT data points to living room and bedrooms
• EcoHomes ‘Excellent’ rating for each dwelling
• BREEAM ‘excellent’ rating for all non residential buildings

Character

The character areas have informed the design of the streets, landscape and planting, thresholds and materials. The new character is defined by simplicity of components and design, the use of materials and colour to emphasize key areas and architectural emphasis at visually important points. The use of ecologically sensible materials, building forms and roof pitches and accessories add to local delight.

Landmarks and vistas

Due to the site’s topography and other constraints, the plan makes the most of the unfolding sequences of views. Entering the site from the east the resident will see the height of the remediated tip, followed by an opening vista onto the retaining pond; a small square, a tree-lined avenue, pinched at the most sensitive parts of the site, creating a green gateway into the western area. The school square with its civic buildings and gateway building oversee the park and western entrances.

Affordable housing

An integral part of the Millennium approach to social sustainability is the creation of a socially inclusive community, an idea reflected in the design of the affordable housing within TMC. The affordable housing is dispersed across the site in a pepper-pot arrangement. Importantly, the influence of the TMC targets has meant that the housing is designed on the basis of blind tenure; the idea that the space requirements of each dwelling are the same whether the property is market or affordable. To achieve this all the properties have been designed to meet the internal space standards of the Housing Corporation.

Parking

The level of parking to be provided has been carefully considered to relate to the sustainable agenda of TMC. This has been calculated using a methodology that is being developed through ongoing research for the ODPM, by Phil Jones Associates. Current levels of car ownership per household are broken down by type, size and tenure and together with local growth factors, a forecast has been made of the number of cars that will be owned by residents The methodology has taken into account the number of allocated (i.e. private) parking spaces given to each particular dwelling.

Shared surface streets

All streets off the main ‘spine road’ through phase 1 have been designed to home-zone principles, giving equal priority to pedestrians and vehicles and providing a network of safe routes for school children. Shared surface streets are designed to 10mph and will operate as both places for movement and informal play areas for children. Traffic speeds are controlled through the design. The shared surface street is an important part of the design, as is the provision of small planted areas with seating, set aside for residents to use as informal amenity space. Pinch points and changes of direction also create restrictions on traffic speed. The layout and detailing of the shared surface streets in Phase 1 have been developed in collaboration with highways officers at the Borough of Telford and Wrekin.

Lessons learned

• Constructive consultation through a range of mechanisms helps significantly.
• Working in parallel strands at both the strategic and detailed level is important. Early discussions on street design or working with developers on house types paid enormous dividends.
• Challenging the agendas of different parties including consultants to establish key priorities, rather than entrenched positions, is useful to get to the critical elements that influence design.
• Keeping the expertise gained by the Council (Borough of Telford and Wrekin) within the local authority is important, and using engagement as training is helpful. For the developer Taylor Woodrow, the sharing of the benefits of the project with other parts of the organisation can help.
• The contractor procurement process together with an integrated approach by the Council can make or break the quality of the final product.

Application for up to 750 dwellings granted in 2005, and Reserved Matters Planning permission was achieved for Phase 1 in March 2007.