Wharford Farm Infrastructure Delivery

Homes England

Hive were instructed by Homes England to act as planning consultants in the Campbell Reith led team progressing detailed design of the new canal bridge, spine road, drainage and earthworks design to de-risk the Wharford Farm site and to assist Homes England to explore a potential master developer role.

Delivery

This instruction resulted in the amendment of the planning strategy for the Wharford Farm site, evolving from an outline planning application to a hybrid planning application. With two separate consultant teams producing information relating to the outline and full elements of the hybrid planning application, Hive play an integral role between the teams to ensure consistent communication and progress.

Designing a detailed strategy and programme to unlock 48 residential sites with a capacity of 3,500+ new homes.
Production of a PID, implementation plan, site prioritisation matrix, area based promotion and marketing documents, and individual proformas for each site including an analysis of the interventions required
A landowner engagement strategy and extensive engagement with funding bodies (including Homes England) aimed at specifically addressing viability challenges.
Drafting an investment prospectus and launch event to directly market the sites to developers.

Outcome

The detailed design of the new canal bridge, which will be constructed adjacent to Grade II Listed Borrows Bridge, is a particularly key element of the instruction with many stakeholders. Hive have been instrumental in the stakeholder engagement strategy, chairing multi-disciplinary meetings considering highways, structures, conservation and planning to ensure that the detailed design meets the expectations of the Council and is capable of being adopted.

More Projects

Seedfield Centre, Bury

Instructed by Hive Homes to provide planning consultancy advice in respect of a residential scheme proposed on a previously developed site in the Green Belt. We initially led the pre-application discussions with Bury Council, who were also the landowner.

Yew Tree Farm, Burscough

Acting for Redrow, Hive were instructed to lead the submission of a reserved matters application for 169 homes. This was the third phase of residential development at Yew Tree Farm and so it was important to ensure that consistency was achieved and we did this by working extremely closely with the design and technical teams at Redrow.

Former Riverside High School, Bury

The former Riverside High School site is located to the west of Radcliffe town centre and has been vacant since 2015. The site, which was cleared in 2021, provided an opportunity to delivery for much needed housing development in Bury.

2020 Winner of the national Planning Awards Editors Choice Award for best overall project and the Increased Housing Delivery category for Preston City Living Strategy

2020 Winner of the Spatial Planning and Plan-Making award in the RTPI North West Regional Awards for Planning Excellence for the Preston City Living Strategy

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