Alconbury Weald claims major accolade at The Planning Awards 2019

Alconbury Weald, a growing community of new homes and commercial premises near Huntingdon, has won a major award at The Planning Awards 2019.

Beating off high-quality competition from a range of projects around the UK, Alconbury Weald has been named “Best Mixed Use Development”. It recognises the outstanding work to date by Urban&Civic, the master developer of the site with overall responsibility for its design.

Urban&Civic is working collaboratively with a range of partners and local community stakeholders to create a unique vision for Alconbury Weald – a former airfield - which includes:

• Up to 5000 new homes of mixed size, price and tenure
• A high-quality, low carbon Enterprise Campus, which will deliver nearly three million sq ft of employment space and 8000 jobs.
• More than 600 acres of woodland and green space and 52 acres of formal spaces and sports pitches
• A range of schools for primary and secondary education
• Community facilities, the first of which includes a restored historic Watch Office, and a community cricket pitch
• A new health centre, alongside shops and services
• Extensive transport links including cycle links, prioritised bus systems to Cambridge, Huntingdon and Peterborough – there is potential for a new Alconbury Weald railway station on the East Coast Mainline

Organised by Planning Magazine, The Planning Awards recognises excellence in both planning and placemaking over the past year. The awards also reward excellence in planning-related activities such as urban design, economic development, housing, regeneration, legal advice and environmental consulting. The 2019 awards were held at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London.

Judges praised the winning entry led by Urban&Civic and its partners; JTP Architects, planning consultancy David Lock Associates, infrastructure consultant’s PBA, and Bradley Murphy Design (BMD), as a “great example of a master developed approach, producing a great long-term placemaking strategy.”

Tim Leathes, Development Director at Urban&Civic, said:

“This award recognises our vision and commitment to transform Alconbury Weald into a truly unique and outstanding place to live and work.

“As a master developer, quality placemaking and design is at the very core of our philosophy; we know getting this right is essential when creating major new communities and embedding them within their local environment.

“We’re very pleased that our work so far, delivered with a strong design team and good relationships with key partners, has been recognised with this prestigious planning award.”Graeme Phillips, Partner leading the project at JTP, said:

“We are so proud that Alconbury Weald has been recognised as an exemplar mixed-use neighbourhood in the Planning & Placemaking Awards. Our innovative Staged Placemaking strategy and robust Design Code has established a real sense of place within the neighbourhood already, and we look forward to seeing the vision be delivered over the next 20 years.”

Ryan Murphy, Director of Bradley Murphy Design (BMD), said:

“Winning this award is testament to the importance and value of collaboration in landscape architecture. Alconbury Weald is the epitome of a landscape-led masterplan and is arguably one of the best examples of residential placemaking in the UK where landscape and ecology have genuinely been championed by a developer from the outset.”.