Delivery of Dunton Hills Garden Village will contribute to growth that meets the borough’s housing and employment needs, whilst providing supporting infrastructure and facilities, consistent with the borough’s village character. It is a corporate priority to deliver the new community and an essential part of the council’s recently adopted local plan.

The strategy for growth set out in the local plan includes site specific policies to deliver Dunton Hills in line with garden community principles, among other things. Ensuring that an entirely new garden village community can be delivered in line with relevant policies requires accompanying master planning and design guidance. A Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) has been prepared to provide additional guidance help shape how the garden village should be delivered.

Work started on the creation of design coding/guidance during 2020 following

completion of the Dunton Hills Garden Village Framework Masterplan Document (FMD), which provides mandatory spatial design principles for the site. More detailed design guidance in the form of a draft SPD was approved for public consultation by the Policy, Resources and Economic Development (PRED) Committee on 17 March 2021 alongside the FMD. Eventual adoption of an SPD will hold material weight when determining planning applications for the garden village.

Following consultation several amendments to the SPD have been made. The report provided members with the final proposed version of the SPD for approval / adoption (Appendix A). In addition, to inform the recommendation a record of the consultation process (Appendix B) and SPD amendments (Appendix C) are provided. The latter two documents would be included with the publication of the SPD as part of an “adoption statement”.

Mr Drane introduced the report and confirmed that the SPD is the starting point for how development should be delivered at Dunton Hills Garden Village, but that the currently live planning application for the site has in some cases progressed beyond the starting point of the SPD design guidance. For example, plans for the school to be delivered in the Dunton Waters neighbourhood of the garden village had evolved further following discussion with Essex County Council as local education authority. This highlighted the fact that once a planning permission is established it would take precedent over the SPD.

After a full discussion, Cllr Hossack MOVED and Cllr Poppy SECONDED the recommendation in the report. A vote was taken and it was RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY.

Members were asked to:

R1. Adopt the Dunton Hills Garden Village Supplementary Planning Document (Appendix A).

Reasons for Recommendation

The Council’s local plan includes policies for the delivery of a new community

at Dunton Hills Garden Village that require growth to be brought forward

through a masterplanned approach. This reflects the size and complexity of

bringing forward a garden village, which will be the borough’s largest

development project in living memory. Detailed design guidance set out

within the Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) is essential to interpret

the higher-level requirements of policy and principles set out in the

Framework Masterplan Document.

The related planning application for delivery of the garden village (Ref.

21/01525/OUT) is currently being determined, due for presentation to the

council’s Planning Committee for decision once outstanding matters have

been resolved. It is important that the design guidance set out within the SPD

has material weight in the decision-making process.