Garden CommunitiesFAQs

The principles of the garden communities date back to the 19th Century Garden City Movement, founded by Ebenezer Howard. The Garden City Movement, sought to deliver development which combined the best of town and country, addressing issues of pollution and overcrowding which were endemic in Victorian Britain.

Today, garden communities are part of a Government programme to enable the development of well-designed, sustainable new communities in order to help address the housing shortage. Tewkesbury Garden Communities was identified within the Government’s Garden Communities Programme in March 2019.

Community and sustainability are at the heart of garden town principles, which have been adapted to address current issues such as sustainability and climate change.

Tewkesbury Borough Council has a statutory requirement to plan for new housing in order to meet the local needs.

The adopted Joint Core Strategy ((JCS for short) now known as the Startegic Local Plan (or SLP)) identifies a housing shortfall across the borough. This plan is currently under review and land in the garden communities area has been put forward for potential development to help address this shortfall.

This plan is for the long term and if this area was allocated for housing it would be developed over the next 25-30 years and longer.

The allocation of this land for the Garden Communities development is being considered though the JCS (now SLP) review, which is currently being undertaken.

Individual planning applications for housing in this area are considered on their own merits and against existing planning policy at that time.

Evidence of need is based upon the annual housing requirement for Tewkesbury which, based on government-issued methodology, is approximately 600 homes per annum. Over 20 years this would equate to 12,000 homes.

The need for employment is based on established studies of economic growth. The adopted JCS highlighted a requirement of 192 hectares of new employment land which could support up to 39,000 jobs (dependent upon type of job) up to 2031.

We will not be building homes or new facilities; that is the role of the developers. However, we do have an important role to play in managing growth and development so that it is of a high-quality and supported by sustainable infrastructure.

Flooding and drainage mitigation is considered though the planning process and technical details are submitted by developers as part of a planning application, for consideration.

There is an on-going project to review and promote improvements to the rail facilities/services in the Ashchurch area. Some improvements, including additional service stops at Ashchurch Station are being discussed with the rail operators and development of the scale associated with the garden town would most certainly help justify this request and the viability of an increased level of services.

The M5 Junction 9 and A46 (Ashchurch) Transport Scheme is a proposal to develop a new or reconfigured M5 junction near Tewkesbury and re-route the existing A46 around Ashchurch to Teddington Hands roundabout. This is called an ‘off-line’ solution because it will be built away from the existing roads and connected up on completion.

A wide variety of route options are currently being considered and technically assessed for suitability.

Gloucestershire County Council are leading on this project. Please visit their website for more information.

The need for improvements to the M5 junction 9 and the A46 though Ashchurch, address other existing issues as well as delivering capacity for new housing. The existing congestion on the A46 is a result of long distance travel, particularly HGVs, and queuing on the M5 junction 9 is a safety concern. These are existing issues which need to be address with a road solution.

Enabling new housing helps to provide the justification for the new road.

All planning applications are considered on their own merits and will have submitted details on their approach to managing travel and transport for consideration by the local planning authority.

One of the Garden Communities principles is for sustainable wider connectivity. The new offline solution for the A46 would enable improvements to the existing A46 due to the reduction in traffic on this route, especially in HGV traffic. This would enable improved walking and cycling infrastructure and improvements to road crossing, which would help to make the Garden Communities well connected and deliver sustainable travel options.

The offline road solution will also improve road capacity and this will enable the delivery of land for employment uses which require more road capacity, helping to deliver a mixed use community.

We would love to hear from you and are more than happy to answer your questions. Please use our contact form and we will get back to you.