A VISION FOR

Urban & Landscape Design

Prepared by WYG for the Borough of Broxbourne

November 2016

BROOKFIELD

CONTENTS

Introduction

The Vision

The Masterplan

Brookfield Riverside

Brookfield Garden Village

Next Steps

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M25

A10

A10

Cheshunt ParkGolf Centre

Brookfield Riverside

Brookfield Garden Village

Cheshunt Park

A11

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New River

CHESHUNT

Flamstead End

Turnford

Hertford RegionalCollege

Lee Valley Regional Park

Cheshunt Station

Turnford Brook

Introduction

As part of its overall vision for the future of the area, Broxbourne Council is working with Hertfordshire County Council to promote a new development centred on the existing Brookfield Retail Park located alongside the A10 close to the centre of the borough.

The proposals are a key part of the Council’s ambition to deliver long-term prosperity to the Borough, acting as a catalyst for inward investment and changing the structure of the local economy. Brookfield will consist of two separate but integrated components: Brookfield Riverside (based around the historic New River), which will incorporate the existing Brookfield Centre and Retail Park and will encompass a retail, civic and leisure centre alongside a new business campus; and attractive new landscaped residential development at Brookfield Garden Village.

The full set of development proposals for the borough, including Brookfield, are set out in the emerging Local Plan. For further information including technical work please visit www.broxbourne.gov.uk/localplan.

The following pages outline initial high level thoughts on the site and begin to lay out the Council’s understanding of what the new Brookfield will look like.

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The New River at Brookfield

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The Vision

“Brookfield Riverside will strengthen the identity of the borough of Broxbourne, providing an accessible new

hub for leisure and entertainment, shopping, and employment, close to the landscaped neighbourhoods

of the new Brookfield Garden Village

View overlooking residential properties from proposed woodland boardwalk

Broxbourne Council wants to enable a prosperous future for its residents. It wants to help secure higher educational attainment for young people through enabling more and better school buildings and facilities. The ambition is to have more employment opportunities and more skilled and higher paid jobs created locally, thereby increasing wealth and reducing the need to travel. The intention is to create a place where existing local businesses want to stay, and new businesses want to set up and invest. A place where young people in particular have plenty to do, have a bright future and want to stay or come back to after going on to higher education. Brookfield Riverside is central to delivery of this vision.

People are living longer and the population is growing. Consequently, many more homes which are accessible and affordable for all age groups are needed. Good health provision and even better access to leisure facilities and open spaces alongside a clean and safe environment are critical elements of the Council’s long term vision. Brookfield Riverside and Garden Village will be a desirable place to live, and will play a significant role in delivering a mix of accommodation to meet a wide range of housing needs in an attractive setting.

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View overlooking residential properties from proposed woodland boardwalk

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The Brookfield site is characterised by its rolling topography, central woodland belt, mature trees and woodland - all set around the valleys of the Turnford and Wormleybury brooks which meander through the area. These features create a beautiful but contained setting in which to create a new place. The master plan will retain these attributes as a landscape and ecological resource as well as creating new woodland and habitats around and through the new development.

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Cheshunt ParkGolf Centre

Proposed area for Brookfield Riverside

scheme

Cheshunt Park

Hell Wood

TurnfordInterchange

A10

New River

Turnford Brook

Park

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radi

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Perrior’s Manor Moated Site

and Fish pond

Hell Wood Moated Site

and Enclosure

Spring Wood

Hill Cross Farm Wormleybury Brook

Nursery Wood

Cheshunt Park Farm

Site Features Plan

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The Masterplan

Overview Development at Brookfield will encompass the following principles:

• Creation of a sustainable and integrated mixed use garden suburb that will accommodate retail, leisure, civic, housing, jobs and social facilities;

• The creation of an identity and sense of place for Brookfield and the borough of Broxbourne;

• To create a strengthened and cohesive retail centre and a new leisure and civic hub for the borough of Broxbourne;

• To achieve a step change in the economy of Broxbourne and increase the attractiveness of Broxbourne as a place to live in, invest in and visit;

• To address traffic congestion and to create sustainable patterns of movement within Brookfield and with the remainder of the Borough;

• To achieve exceptional standards of design and sustainability; and

• To be responsive to and where possible enhance the landscape and ecology of the Brookfield area

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Hell Wood

BrookfieldCentre

BrookfieldRetail Park

A10

Proposed Primary School

Local Centre

Proposed Allotments

Possible relocated Gypsy and Travellers

Site

Cheshunt Park

Cheshunt Park Golf Centre

BrookfieldRiverside

• Up to 1,500 new homes• New local centre• New primary school• Employment opportunities• Retail and Leisure uses• An attractive landscape

setting

Brookfield will deliver...

BrookfieldGarden Village

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Proposed public plaza centred on the New River

Proposed residential access point

Proposed Leisure uses

Shared site access with Brookfield Garden Village

Potential location forBusiness Campus

Potential location forCouncil Depot and HWRC

Existing Brookfield Centre

Existing Brookfield Retail Park

Brookfield is currently the home of the Brookfield Centre (Tesco and M&S) and the Brookfield Retail Park. These will be incorporated into an extended and cohesive new shopping, civic and leisure centre that will include shops, leisure space, civic facilities, apartments and elderly persons’ accommodation within a mixed use and green environment. This development will be on the land currently occupied by the New River Trading Estate, the Halfhide Lane travellers and allotments sites and additional land to the north of the New River.

New shops are expected to include at least one department store, which will anchor the development, and a major food store. It is anticipated that a new High Street will intersect the development and that High Street retail chains will predominate within this. At the northern end of this street will be a leisure complex that will include a cinema, other leisure facilities such as ten pin bowling, cafés and restaurants set around the New River.

BrookfieldRiverside

Proposed Retail/Mixed use development

Proposed pedestrian/cycle links along theNew River

Proposed pedestrian/cycle connection under A10, along route of Turnford Brook

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Image: New view of South Entrance

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New offices/workspaces and residential apartments will be built alongside and above shops and leisure units. It is estimated that there will be approximately 250 apartments within the development. Elderly persons’ homes are best located within attractive settings close to shops and facilities and Brookfield Riverside therefore provides the ideal environment to locate housing for elderly people.

The new civic centre will be the new civic heart for Broxbourne and a new public square is proposed alongside it. The Council proposes to relocate its offices from the existing Bishops College site to Brookfield and is scoping out what other facilities could be located alongside it. It is proposed that the complex will incorporate a new medical centre that could incorporate primary care facilities for the Borough.

It is envisaged that this new development will be of a contemporary design with a mixture of building heights. There is the potential for this to include a tall landmark building or buildings. The detailed form of the development will be determined through masterplanning.

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This new development will assume town centre status within the Local Plan retail hierarchy, alongside Hoddesdon and Waltham Cross. Unlike those centres which have mainly localised catchments, the predominant catchment for Brookfield will be the borough of Broxbourne.

The new Brookfield will cross existing Broxbourne catchments and will meet evidenced needs that cannot be fulfilled within the existing town centres. This will recapture unsustainable trips to centres outside the Borough being made by many Broxbourne residents and prospectively reduce overall trips through the most congested road junctions in the Borough.

Businesses and JobsBeing at the heart of the Borough, adjacent to a mix of facilities and within an exceptional working environment, Brookfield is ideally situated to attract new businesses. To the north of the main retail, civic and leisure area and directly to the west of the Turnford Interchange will therefore be a new business campus.

Buildings within the business campus will also be of contemporary design. Subject to master planning, building heights within the campus could extend to 5 storeys’ located within well landscaped settings.

‘Image by William Murphy / CC BA-SA 2.0’

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Residential neighbourhoods

A series of neighbourhoods are arranged throughout the site with each being rendered distinctive by its response to the sites varying topography and surrounding landscape context.

The local centre At the heart of the Garden Village is a local centre. It forms a distinctive place with local shops, community facilities and a new school laid out around a community square at the intersection of the Village’s main streets. Turnford Brook meanders through the local square reinforcing the strong east west landscape connection and lending it a distinctive sense of place.

GardenVillage

Working with the landscape

The wooded valley of the Turnford Brook runs east-west through the site. This would be protected and enhanced as a landscape and ecological corridor running right through the new Brookfield. It would also provide an off-road pedestrian and cycle route from Turnford to the east of the A10 to Park Lane Paradise and the countryside beyond. This would be complemented by a north south green corridor between Cheshunt Park and the existing pond which would be a central feature of the village, as shown on the attached plan.

Elsewhere, existing trees and hedgerows have been retained where possible and help form connections to the wider countryside as well as providing the basis for areas of open space within residential parcels.

Beyond the new link road, the Turnford Brook runs westwards through Hell Wood. The land to the north and south of Hell Wood has been the subject of past mineral workings and inert landfill. Whilst this land does extend into the Green Belt, it is relatively low lying and forms a natural amphitheatre that is well screened from surrounding landscapes by mature woodland and shelter belts. It represents an exceptional opportunity to create a garden village of around 1,500 new homes.

The proposed northern and southern boundaries of this village are well defined by woodland bordering the Wormleybury Brook and Cheshunt Park which will also define and form defensible boundaries for the new Green Belt edge. The western edge of the village is less well defined. However, the land rises sharply at this juncture and it is proposed to plant these slopes with native trees as a publicly accessible community woodland, to create a new and sustainable Green Belt edge.

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Proposed Connection to Cheshunt Park

Proposed location of Primary School

Proposed location of Local Centre

Retained Pond

Proposed Access

Retained WoodlandProposed location of Allotments

Proposed connection toexisting public rights of way

Proposed location of Traveller Site

Proposed access

Garden Village Plan

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The village will contain a series of distinctive neighbourhoods, each one having its own character that is interconnected with the landform of that neighbourhood and the landscape within and around it. At the heart of each neighbourhood would be a local shared community green space. Every neighbourhood will have excellent access to the wider landscape and will benefit from easily accessible open space and play space.

The new neighbourhoods will provide a range of house types and tenures to meet the needs of a diverse community. New housing will be built to a high standard of design and finish.

View looking through a neighbourhood play space towards existing woodland block

Residential Plan

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A self sufficient neighbourhood

A new local centre located at the intersection of the key east-west landscape link and the proposed loop road will provide a range of facilities for residents. Alongside a new primary school, the hub will create a focal point for the new community while also supporting the wider goals of creating a sustainable new village. The intensity of uses within the area creates the opportunity for serendipitous meetings and will help forge a sense of community within the Garden Village.

Together, Brookfield Riverside and Brookfield Garden Village will provide the basis for a mutually supportive local economy. This symbiotic relationship will improve the viability of each component and will contribute to the long term sustainability of Brookfield.

View overlooking proposed Local Centre

Local shops and services

A small neighbourhood centre, providing everyday provisions and services. This could include a shop, nursery space and space for health services.

A neighbourhood square

A flexible and attractive social space as a focus for activity, gathering, and holding community events.

A new community primary school

A site for a new community primary school will provide for a complementary relationship between local shops with opportunity for shared trips.

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The wooded valley of the Turnford Brook runs east-west through the site. This would be protected and enhanced as a landscape and ecological corridor running right through the new Brookfield. It would also provide an off-road pedestrian and cycle route from Turnford to the east of the A10 to Park Lane Paradise and the countryside beyond, and through an existing tunnel under the A10 alongside the Brook and into Turnford. This would be complemented by a north south green corridor between Cheshunt Park and the existing pond which would be a central feature of the village, as shown plan on the facing page.

Elsewhere, existing trees and hedgerows have been retained where possible and help form connections to the wider countryside as well as providing the basis for areas of open space within residential parcels.

Landscape Plan

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An example of existing mature tree incorporated within landscape masterplan

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Next Steps

Following on from this initial masterplanning work, developers will be appointed to work up the proposals in more detail, including matters relating to phasing and delivery, with a view to submitting a planning application in due course. The planning application will be supported by a wealth of technical information, including a transport assessment and an environmental impact assessment. The Council will consult stakeholders and local residents as part of the normal procedure of processing the application, before a decision is made by the Planning Committee.

The Borough Council has recently undertaken a full public consultation on the emerging Local Plan, including the Brookfield proposals. The Council will consider all the responses and complete all the necessary technical work (including a transport strategy and infrastructure delivery plan) before it issues a revised draft plan for consultation and then submission to the Planning Inspectorate for Examination in Public. Subject to a finding of soundness by the Local Plan inspector, the Local Plan will then be adopted by the Council as planning policy.

If you wish to be kept informed on progress with the Local Plan, please email planningpolicy@broxbourne.gov.uk to be added to the Local Plan Update e-newsletter circulation list.

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