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Housebuilder presents vision for privately financed 'garden villages'


Housebuilder Barratt Developments has presented a vision for 'garden villages' of up to 5,000 homes to be delivered by volume housebuilders without public finance.

Barratt has published a report which said that developments of between 500 and 5,000 homes would be particularly important in meeting the UK's need for housing.

The report, 'Places for all ages: delivering the future garden village', said such villages would be "of sufficient scale to deliver infrastructure and benefits for residents, but not so large as to necessitate costs and intervention that erect major barriers to delivery". It said there was "no fundamental reason" why such villages could not be delivered "without recourse to public money or state-backed vehicles or intervention".

The report said a 5,000-home village would be more likely to gain the necessary local support to get beyond the planning stage. It recommended changes to the National Planning Policy Framework to require strategic planning beyond the immediate planning period and "increase the requirement for consideration of Garden Cities". It said each garden village could be delivered by a "garden village creation company", which would finance and promote development and manage its legacy.

Barratt said garden villages would require an economic strategy providing the right amounts of facilities, services, employment space, commercial space, transport infrastructure and green infrastructure.

The report estimated that residents of a 5,000-home village would require access to around 5,300 jobs. It estimated that 850 jobs could be created through during the construction of the village and 2,000 could be created in local businesses, shops and services. Good transport connections with nearby towns and London were expected to enable residents to access employment opportunities in neighbouring towns. 

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