North East Blackburn
Strategic Urban Expansion
Client: Blackburn with Darwen Council and a Consortium of Landowners
This is a major strategic urban expansion area allocated in Blackburn with Darwen’s Local Plan. It is a site of 100ha with a capacity for around 1,500 homes.
DLP Planning was instructed to provide planning masterplanning and landscape design input into a development framework document that supports the allocation of the site in the Local Plan by showing that new housing is deliverable and that the site is developable. This has considered heritage, topographical, drainage, and ecological constraints. The framework shows how the distribution of housing, strategic open space, an access strategy and site drainage can overcome these constraints. It also shows how engineering, design, and environmental matters have been considered as a whole in creating a masterplan for the site.
A key challenge with this project was tackling the site’s steep slopes. The development framework produced by DLP Planning worked with the grain of the land to ensure that new development will be placed on platforms with open space in between. Along with topography heritage (including listed buildings), ecological assets and power lines have had a bearing on the approach to creating a new sustainable neighbourhood. The phased construction of infrastructure allows the development to be delivered in logical stages.
The Outcome
Following the adoption of the Local Plan and the allocation of the site for strategic housing development, DLP Planning has been retained by Blackburn with Darwen Council to advise on masterplanning and a design code, leading to an outline planning application.
“The Council has worked with DLP Planning and Cass Associates on the masterplanning of several key development sites over the last 5 years. Most significantly, this has been in relation to a proposed new 100ha strategic housing allocation (for around 1,500 new homes) in northeast Blackburn. As principal landowner the Council, along with other parties, commissioned Cass Associates to prepare a Development Framework document for the site; the primary purposes being to investigate all relevant constraints and opportunities across the site, development potential, and to ultimately demonstrate that the site was deliverable and viable, and suitable for inclusion in the Borough’s new Local Plan. Throughout the project we were provided with a professional, high-quality service. Strong project management and technical expertise ensured that the requirements of the brief were fully met. The Development Framework and supporting documents were instrumental in ensuring that the site was allocated in the Borough’s new Local Plan (2021-2037). This now forms a key part of the local housing supply.”
Darren TweedBlackburn with Darwen Borough Council
