Scheme intended to meet housing need driven by Stansted Airport expansion
City & Country have submitted proposals for 480 homes in Essex to planners.
The scheme, designed by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, is split across two sites on land to the north of Birchanger and to the south of Stansted Mountfitchet.
Housing need in the local area is expected to increase in conjunction with the planned expansion of Stansted Airport and a new logistics park nearby.
Proposals, which have gone through a public consultation process, include a shop, cafe, nursery and care home.
According to the developer, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios’ (FCBS) designs for the homes draw from the “architectural, landscape and culture of Uttlesford and the wider region”.
In a statement from August, announcing its involvement from the scheme, FCBS said the designs would “take inspiration from the character of local towns and villages such as Saffron Walden, Thaxted and Finchingfield, as well as the work of artist Edward Bawden, who captured the spirit of the area before the 1960s housing boom”.
The homes are intended to be built to Uttlesford’s latest standard to have net zero operational carbon.
City & Country plans to build homes of between one and six bedrooms, half of which would be for affordable rent or ownership.
The sites are situated within a wider landholding of 177 acres and the developer has plans to keep some of the farmland between the two in agricultural use, alongside proposals for a “habitat bank” with ecological improvements, including a community orchard and the reinstatement of historic hedgerow and woodland.
Simon Vernon-Harcourt, design and planning director for City & Country, said the aim of the scheme was to “showcase how Grey Belt land can be put to best use through exemplar design and provision of significant infrastructure improvements”.
“These proposals will protect and enhance the surrounding ecological landscape and biodiversity while creating a sustainable neighbourhood that will complement the existing community,” he added.
FCBS are also working with City & Country on the redevelopment of the Bath Press site in the west of England.
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