Planning Permission Granted for a Heritage and Affordable Housing-led Redevelopment in Dedham, Essex

We are delighted to have secured planning permission for demolition of an existing farm outbuildings and erection of 9x affordable homes and 8x market homes in Dedham, Essex.

A previous planning application for the redevelopment of this site had been refused by Colchester Borough Council. ADP were then approached to review the decision and seek to establish a planning strategy that could gain a positive planning decision. The key issues that needed to be overcome were:

• the site is located outside of a settlement boundary, where there is a planning policy resistance to new development;

• proximity to heritage assets; and

• proximity to the Dedham Vale Area of Natural Beauty.

ADP put forward a design and heritage-led redevelopment that would deliver a substantive amount of affordable housing to meet local housing needs to comply with the Colchester Borough Council’s exception site policy.

The planning and design issues were addressed as follows:

Proximity to many listed buildings

Through a detailed contextual and historical analysis, ADP were able to demonstrate that the proposed development would not impact upon the views of any listed buildings in the locality or their setting. The development design objective also sought to integrate comfortably within the historic environment without conflict. The architectural detail and ‘silhouette’ of the buildings were designed to fit in, but also be unremarkable in order to support and not upstage the important historic buildings.

The Conservation Area

The site is located immediately adjacent to the Conservation Area and shares a visual link along the main road. Despite not being within the Conservation Area itself, the application site still had an impact on its setting. As noted above, the design sought to embed the new dwellings into the existing historic environment without causing any conflict.

The Dedham Vale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB)

The application site is located within the Dedham Vale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and would therefore have the potential to harm its setting. ADP were able to demonstrate that the application site is not naturally prominent as its boundary facing the open countryside is roughly in line with surrounding development.

The proposed landscaping along this boundary also composed of a mixture of woodland trees, indigenous hedgerow species and a combination of open space and simple building forms.

The site layout was carefully considered to ensure that gardens did not back onto the open countryside but were placed sideways to make domestic paraphernalia less visible and roof spans were kept short to keep roof heights low. When viewed from the AONB, it was successfully demonstrated the site would blend naturally with the adjoining village edge.

Affordable Housing

The proposed scheme included a significant proportion of affordable housing to meet the requirements of the National Planning Policy Framework, which allows some market housing to facilitate a local need for affordable housing. The planning application was supported by a detailed viability assessment that demonstrated how this development could be delivered.

Local Consensus

A key element of this heritage-led affordable housing scheme was local consensus prior to the submission of the application. Regular dialogue was established with the Parish Council and a public exhibition was held. The outcome of these events informed the design process.

Design Approach

Our overall design philosophy was informed by all these considerations and led to the following design principles:

• To create a site plan which has appeared to have incrementally develop and in-fill over time.

• To create spaces, forms and silhouettes sympathetic to the village.

• To accurately reflected a density/radius appropriate for the site’s distance from Dedham Village centre.

• To develop a number of typologies, including Farm Buildings, Alms-house, Vernacular and feature buildings.

• A simple palette of traditional materials common to Dedham and surrounding areas was selected.

This carefully devised scheme successfully secured planning permission when a previous application had failed.

If you have a development project and seek professional support, please contact at mail@adpltd.co.uk.

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