Infrastructure

Delivering infrastructure can unlock development of a garden community and provide some of the building blocks for a successful new community.

Identifying infrastructure requirements

The infrastructure needed to support a sustainable garden community can include:

  • physical components, like streets, cycle paths, utilities and public realm
  • green and blue infrastructure, like open space and green corridors, water bodies and natural habitat creation
  • social/ community infrastructure like education, healthcare, community, retail, play for all ages, and sports/ leisure facilities
  • strategic infrastructure needed to support delivery of the whole community, like major transport infrastructure, a secondary school or a country park
  • local infrastructure is needed to serve a neighbourhood, for example, a primary school

Infrastructure planning

As part of identifying your infrastructure requirements, you need to consider:

  • what’s needed to address the impact of the development - and engage with stakeholders
  • the stage in development different elements of infrastructure are needed
  • cost of provision
  • funding sources
  • who is responsibility for delivery
  • local factors which may affect infrastructure delivery, like if there is capacity in existing local schools. This may have an impact on provision of new schools

Delivering infrastructure

Establish the phasing and delivery dependencies for both strategic and local infrastructure in the masterplan for your garden community.

This is very important where your site is:

  • in multiple land ownerships 
  • has no overall master developer or development agreement in place
  • likely to come forward for development in a piecemeal fashion,

In many cases, infrastructure will be funded and delivered in accordance with Section 106 Planning Obligations attached to planning permission for a garden community.

These obligations set out who is responsible for delivering the infrastructure, when it is needed and how it will be funded.

Further information