Land at East Culme House
Public Consultation
Introduction:
East Cullompton SPD Masterplan
Culm Garden Village
Mid Devon District Council through its adopted Local Plan has identified Cullompton as an area of growth to help meet the current and future housing, employment and infrastructure needs of local communities.
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The Government in 2017 announced plans for new garden villages and town across the country, including Culm Garden Village. Culm Garden Village has a long term vision to deliver sustainable new homes, as well as employment, shops, schools, healthcare facilities and leisure opportunities. The development should help to improve connections to the M5 motorway and contribute towards the town centre relief road, along with works to re-open Cullompton railway station.
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More information on Culm Garden Village can be found: https://culmgardenvillage.co.uk/
Cullompton Town Council in its Neighbourhood Plan is supportive too of the sustainable opportunities and benefits of Culm Garden Village.
East Cullompton Development
As part of Culm Garden Village, Mid Devon District Council has allocated land for 2,600 new homes at East Cullompton. It has prepared and adopted the East Cullompton Masterplan to guide how this development should come forwards to best ensure the aims/objectives and sustainable principle of the Culm Garden Village are realised.
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The East Cullompton Masterplan is here: https://www.eastcullompton.co.uk/
Planning Application
On land that is part of the East Cullompton allocation, Kingacre Estates is to submit a planning application to Mid Devon District Council for approximately 500 new homes, along with community hub, transport infrastructure and large areas of open space including allotments, wildlife sites and places to play.
This site for development is located to the south of Honiton Road and east of the River Culm, including land at the former Cummings Nursery. The site forms the south western part of the wider East Cullompton allocation.
It is intended that the planning application will be submitted in autumn 2023.
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Site Location Aerial Photograph
Kingacre Estates
Kingacre Estates is a company that promotes development, specialising in preparing and submitting planning applications to secure permission for high quality and sustainable schemes.
Kingacre Estates is working with a team of design and environmental specialists to be able to present a development that successfully delivers across the environmental, social and economic dimensions of sustainable development.
Kingacre Estates prides itself on delivering bespoke and attractive homes which enhance communities and complement the existing residential offer, prioritising quality. It is not a volume house builder driven by delivery targets. It is important that the development at Cullompton is the right development for its local people and surrounding environment.
Context:
Land at East Culme House forms part of the proposed sustainable development at East Cullompton
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The site includes farmland and former commercial nursery uses
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The southern and eastern reaches of the site are low lying and form part of the floodplain
Mid Devon District Council is responsible for sufficient new market and affordable homes area provided to meet the needs of its communities.
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Mid Devon Local Plan
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The Council’s Local Plan (adopted July 2020) has a vision that:
Mid Devon will be a prosperous and sustainable rural district, where individuals, families and communities can flourish as a result of access to good quality local employment, housing and services and a clean, green, safe environment. Local communities and private, public and voluntary organisations will work in partnership to meet social and economic needs in ways that enhance the environment and reduce the area’s carbon footprint. High quality development in the right places with appropriate infrastructure will bring regeneration, social and economic benefits and enhance towns, villages and countryside while promoting sustainable use of energy and other resources and tackling the causes and effects of climate change.
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In realising his vision there is a spatial strategy – for Cullompton this strategy that the town will become the strategic focus of new development, reflecting its accessibility, economic potential and environmental capacity.
Across the 20 year period of the Local Plan from 2013 to 2033, 7,860 new homes area required. Some 50% of these homes are being delivered in Cullompton, with the 2,600 homes allocate at East Cullompton, as part of Culm Garden Village, the largest allocated area.
Local Plan Policy CU7 allocates a site of 160 hectares for development of:
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2,600 dwellings, including affordable housing;
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32,000 square metres of commercial floorspace (including a care home or retirement complex, retail, offices, hotel and leisure development);
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new primary school
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at least 40 hectares of strategic green infrastructure;
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active travel, pedestrian and cycling connectivity; and
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improvements to M5 motorway junction 28 to increase capacity.
East Cullompton Masterplan
The East Cullompton Masterplan is more focussed document, setting out how sustainable development at East Cullompton can be achieved.
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It embodies a principle of the 20 minute place, where short and dependable journey times, via walking / cycling and buses, as well by private car, to access key services and facilities (schools, shops, leisure, employment etc.), underpins successful placemaking and communities.
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The relationship between the development at East Cullompton and the existing town, with new infrastructure to be provided, should allow for the benefits of the 20 minute place to be realised.
The East Cullompton Masterplan presents a framework of how development across the area should come forwards – for there to be:
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five mixed use community hubs, forming the focus of new communities;
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a new primary school with direct access from Honiton Road;
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employment that is very accessible / integrated into the development;
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large area of diverse and high quality landscaping, faithful to the Garden Village ideals of development; and
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delivery of major road improvements to relieve congestion in the town centre and M5 motorway junction.
These elements are coordinated in an overall spatial masterplan for East Cullompton.
Emerging Proposals:
Against this background, Kingacre Estates is preparing its planning application for approximately 500 dwelling, plus a community hub, green infrastructure and active travel connections.
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The planning application will be outline, to seek approval the arrangement of built form, community hub and green infrastructure; approval for maximum densities of dwellings; and approval for the maximum heights of buildings.
These draft parameter plans are seen here.
Along with the parameters of development that are to be sought, a more detailed illustrative scheme will be provided to demonstrate how development could successfully be delivered.
This illustrative plan is shown here.
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Proposed Illustrative Masterplan
The parameter plans and illustrative scheme include a number of key elements:
Access
The principal vehicular access to the site would be from Honiton Road, either via a priority junction and right turn lane or roundabout. This would accommodate vehicular movements of the development as well to take account of transport implications of how the motorway junction might be upgraded.
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The principal access will make designated provision for walking and cycling in a landscaped setting.
A second access to Honiton Road from the Site for walking and cycling, and to act as an emergency access only should the principal access be blocked, would be provided.
Development will facilitate an east-west active travel route, prioritising walking and cycling, through the Site to seek to connect to the existing public right of way along the River Culm.
Open Space
A range of different types of open space will be provided:
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area of informal open space
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formal areas of play for children
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areas for teenagers to congregate
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a focal community green
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allotments
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areas of outdoor seating in the heart of the community hub
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ponds for storage of surface water
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Place Making
The aim of providing a successful place of distinctive identify is focussed upon the integrated mixed-use community hub; and community green and other areas of open space / green infrastructure located throughout the site.
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This makes provision for people and their activities, surface water storage / management and biodiversity.
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The outer edges of the site will be keep free of built form to allow a softer edge to integrate int the wider landscape.
Buildings will be tallest, up to three storeys in the centre of the site, reducing in height adjacent to existing houses to the north (up to two storeys) and along the site’s outer edges (up to two and a half storeys).
Densities will make effective use of the land, higher (up 45 dwellings per hectare) in the western part of the site and lower (up 40 dwellings per hectare) to the east.
The relationship between the houses and these distinctive
elements is very important, with some indicative house typologies shown.
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Sketch Illustration: Dwellings positively overlooking new green edge
Ecology
Development will retain what has the greatest ecological value and biodiversity: existing trees, hedgerows, areas of woodland, and the wildlife site / pond to the north of East Culme House.
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Much of the existing hedgerows will remain through the development, this will create a vital ecology corridor running through the site. With the retention of woodland to the north of the site acting as a wildlife area.
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Against the current agricultural use of the site biodiversity can be increased, including through new ponds and landscape planting of native species. Biodiversity improvements will benefit local wildlife.
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Surface Water Drainage and Flood Risk
New development will be outside areas at greater flood risk from nearby steams and rivers, to ensure the development is safe and does not displace existing flood water storage.
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Great attention is being given to the surface water drainage of the emerging scheme, to ensure rainwater is appropriately managed and stored on the sites and filtered slowly back into the wider hydrological system.
These measures will ensure development does not increase the risk of flooding on the site or elsewhere.
Landscape and Trees
As many of the existing trees and hedgerows as possible will be retained, acting to soften and moderate the appearance of the development from wider areas of countryside and the Blackdown Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
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In turn these existing mature landscape features will enhance the development, to provide areas of open and amenity space that
will be the development more attractive and welcoming.
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Heritage
It is intended to retain East Culme House, as a local heritage asset, as integral to the new community hub at the heart of the site. This will inform and enrich the design of the community hub, allowing for a continuation of the existing and future character of the site.
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Provision of Infrastructure
Delivery of development is reliant on suitable transport provision and highway conditions, with existing congestion throughout the town and across the motorway junction a critical consideration.
Kingacre Estates is continuing to work with Mid Devon District Council, Devon County Council and National Highways to ensure development and the necessary highway improvements (including the town centre relief road and motorway junction) are delivered in a timely / appropriate manner.
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The contribution that development at East Cullompton and the wider Culm Garden Village can made towards this infrastructure will be significant.
The proposals will retain and enhance those areas of greatest ecological value and biodiversity
East Culme House and associated buildings will be retained and integrated as part of a new community/ commercial hub
New surface water drainage will ensure rainwater is appropriately managed and filtered slowly back into the wider hydrological system
Planning Application Timeline:
