Policy SPS5.5: Popham Garden Village

Popham Garden Village will be a healthy and sustainable place with a strong, clearly defined and coherent village character, which maximises the opportunities presented by its attractive rural setting in a sensitive and positive manner. It will create:

• A place with a strong and clearly defined rural character, utilising high quality characterful architecture, which will create an uplifting environment for residents.
• High quality facilities and services, providing a supportive and sustainable environment to live, work and play, creating a strong sense of community spirit.
• An exemplar community that is aspirational and sustainable, combats climate change and supports healthy lifestyles.
• A place which is inextricably linked with the natural environment, with natural features forming a prominent part of the development and creating a positive relationship with the surrounding landscape. There will be a series of countryside and ecology corridors which contribute to the important wider green infrastructure and biodiversity networks.
• A place which is highly walkable, with convenient access to local facilities and services within the development to meet the majority of people’s day to day needs, creating a healthy and tranquil living environment for residents.

Policy SPS5.5: Popham Garden Village

The site, as shown on the Policies Map, is allocated for a well-designed and sustainable development that will:

Amount and Type of Development

1. Make provision for:

1. Approximately 3,000 homes;
2. Specialist accommodation for older persons;
3. 5% as serviced plots for custom and self-build homes;
4. Education facilities;
5. Employment land (comprising uses falling within Classes E(g), B2, B8) and an 18 hectare solar farm;
6. A village centre providing a range of retail, leisure, cultural, community, health and service facilities;
7. Permanent Gypsy and Traveller pitches, proportionate to the size of the site when considered in relation to the overall need for pitches as set out in the latest version of the Gypsy and Traveller Accommodation Assessment.
    

Development Principles

Masterplanning

2. Be in accordance with the principles set out in:

1. The Concept Plan;
2. The Masterplan included in Appendix XX (to be produced prior to the Regulation 19 edition of the Local Plan). This Masterplan will include a Vision for a Garden Village with its own identity and character, strongly informed by its rural Hampshire location;
3. A Strategic Design Code which will be adopted as a Supplementary Planning Document prior to the grant of a full planning permission or the first reserved matters within a phase;

3. The development will make provision for employment uses in the southern part of the site near the boundary with the A303. The village centre will be located in the centre of the site within easy walking distance to all residents;

Design and Landscape

4. The siting, density, scale, layout, character and hard and soft landscaping of the development must respond positively to, and take opportunities to enhance: the landscape qualities of the site and wider area; the vision for the Garden Village; and the local distinctiveness of the area. The siting and scale of development should pay particular regard to the topography of the site, to existing areas of woodland (within and next to the site) and to the impact on the North Wessex Downs National Landscape. The design and layout of the development on its outward facing edges will enable a suitable transition to the adjacent countryside. Buildings, layouts and spaces will be created which promote a sense of place and which weave green infrastructure into the fabric of the built environment;

Biodiversity

5. Protect and enhance key species and habitats, prevent detrimental impacts and, where unavoidable, mitigate the impact on protected species and habitats, and secure the creation and management of linkages that provide high levels of habitat connectivity within the site and to the wider green infrastructure network. Achieve a minimum 10% biodiversity net gain secured by a site management plan;
6. Demonstrate, via a nutrient neutrality mitigation strategy, that nutrient neutrality can be achieved in perpetuity in order to protect the Solent nature conservation sites. This should be via on-site mitigation measures unless it can be robustly demonstrated that this is not achievable, in which case off-site mitigation would be required;

Heritage

7. Ensure that the layout responds positively to archaeological assets and successfully mitigates any impacts, via analysis by specialist consultants;

Flooding and Pollution

8. Ensure that appropriate flood risk management measures are provided including sustainable drainage systems (SuDS);
1. Ensure that noise impacts arising from traffic on the A303 are successfully mitigated through suitable measures.

Infrastructure

10. Provide an Infrastructure Delivery Strategy with each full or outline planning application to demonstrate that infrastructure requirements across the Local Plan Period has been comprehensively planned and phased. The Infrastructure Delivery Strategy should also have regard to the infrastructure requirements of the site in its totality;

Energy

11. Ensure that a solar farm is delivered in line with a detailed method statement, setting out how it will be connected with the residential and employment development;

Social and Community facilities

50. Make on-site provision for two 2-forms of entry primary schools;

1000. Make on-site provision for a community centre which will meet the needs of the new development, informed by the requirements set out in the council’s Leisure and Recreational Needs Assessment; and provide on-site sports pitches which will meet the needs of the new development as required by the council’s Infrastructure Delivery Plan;

Green Infrastructure

14. Make on-site provision for suitable amounts of open/green space including allotments in accordance with the council’s Green Space Standards, in a manner which is well related to the overall layout and character of the development, and how it relates to its surroundings. This provision needs to incorporate an effective green infrastructure network within the development (utilising appropriate planting in order to support their biodiversity and landscape function), and which connects with the surrounding countryside, habitats and Public Rights of Way. The delivery of green space and play will need to be provided alongside development parcels in order that there are facilities for residents to use by the time housing is occupied;

Transport

• Safe, suitable and convenient access, including from Overton Road to the west of the site and the C226 to the south of the site, must be provided for all users, prioritising active modes (walking and cycling), and access to high quality public transport services that offer a genuine choice of transport modes;
• Ensure no severe adverse impact on the local and strategic highway networks nor have an unacceptable impact on highway safety with the inclusion of suitable measures to mitigate the impact, including for users accessing and egressing the A303 Trunk Road and the connecting routes;
• Be subject to the submission of a comprehensive and robust Transport Assessment and a supporting site wide Travel Plan which prioritises and promotes active travel and public transport use within and beyond the site. This will include:

1. Provision of suitable new and improved facilities for active modes (walking and cycling) in order to establish safe, suitable and convenient access both within the site and to the railway station at Micheldever Station;
2. Provision of high quality public transport infrastructure including Mobility Hubs which are sensitive to their setting, accessible and convenient waiting and boarding facilities, and new developer supported public transport services to access higher order services and facilities, including to/from the railway station at Micheldever Station, and Basingstoke town centre (including Basingstoke Railway and Bus Stations), which will be available to serve the residents and users of the first phase of the development and subsequent phases thereafter;
3. Ways to reduce the need to travel (including access to digital services), and to prioritise and maximise movement by active modes and public transport services, including layouts, street designs and associated measures that give priority to active travel and convenient access to high-quality public transport services, to minimise the transport impacts arising from the development;

Utilities

18. Provide or contribute towards suitable infrastructure for sewerage (on and off-site), foul water and other utilities.