Tendring Colchester Borders Garden Community

The vision of a sustainable new community

With housing, community facilities and services and land for business and industrial use, the Garden Community is intended to meet the needs of the area’s projected population growth over the next 30-40 years. The scheme will support sustainable development providing new opportunities to live, work and play in the area with enhanced public transport facilities and improved links.

Making the case for the garden community

Supporting several Councils we helped develop the case for the Tendring Colchester Borders Garden Community (TCBGC), providing the evidence to support its allocation through the Local Plan process, including appearing at the Examination in Public.

The challenge was to demonstrate that a vision-led transport strategy with ambitious walking, cycling and public transport modes share could be achieved and balanced with the policy requirements for a link road between the A120 and A133 and a new bus rapid transit system connecting the site to Colchester city centre. The congested nature of the major highway routes required an approach to the masterplan that delivered an attractive active and public transport offer alongside a range of day-to-day services within the new community to capture as many journeys as possible within the site.

Supporting Colchester District Council with the next steps

Following the adoption of the Local Plan, we were retained by the Councils to join the design team developing a masterplan and Development Plan Document for up the new community of 7,500 homes. Our work included collaboration on a concept masterplan that was included in the DPD, embedding work previously undertaken to represent best practice for walking, cycling, public transport and traffic management.

We adopted a vision-led approach, which set the ambition for what the Garden Community will be and develops the proposed route to delivery. This involved developing a series of plans showing different transport modes and the policy principles for each, as well as consideration of the role of future mobility. The design team working for the Councils was led by Prior + Partners (masterplanners) and we worked alongside Gillespies on landscape and ecology to develop a ‘best-in-class’ masterplan to support the DPD.

The result

Following an Examination in Public, including developing Statements of Common Ground with key stakeholders such as National Highways, the masterplan and evidence-base work was adopted in a Development Plan Document (DPD) for TCBGC in May 2025. The developer of the site will be expected to meet the policy and design requirements of the DPD through its recently submitted planning application and ongoing delivery of the Garden Community.