History of site

The site is located to the south west of the existing town centre accessed from the A41, Oxford Road, which is the main route into Bicester. It is a mixed use for 1585 new homes, a primary school, education campus, mixed use local centre, commercial and employment development, health care development and open space.

The project:

The Noble Consultancy were engaged and instructed to bring forward four phases within the approved master plan for the development within the white lands and urban village character areas of this development. A Design Code was prepared and approved at outline stage providing very distinctive characteristics within each area of the site. It described in detail the elevation treatments, street characters and identified the specific design features that should occur within each specific character area.

The design process

The Noble Consultancy took a lead consultancy role for this project, liaising with engineers and in-house landscape architects to ensure all local planning authority comments were addressed and supporting information was prepared in a timely manner.

Initially, sketch planning layouts were prepared based on the approved Masterplan and Design Code. The client’s standard house type range was utilised to comply with the prescribed private and affordable housing mix for the site. Following client approval of the sketch layout, a detailed planning application was prepared by the planning team.

Specific requirements of the Design Code relating to density, massing and building heights required significant changes to the client’s standard house types. Particular attention was needed to create bespoke designs in focal point locations within prescribed character areas. This was achieved by introducing a mix of architectural styles and detailing as well as an enhanced palette of materials.

The local planning authority used the approved Design Code as a quality control document. The Noble Consultancy drew upon various expertise within the team to clearly demonstrate how the proposals were compliant with the design Code, using various software tools and presentation mediums.

Project challenges

One of the challenges on this project was adapting the client’s standard house type range to meet the requirements set out in the Design Code. Standard house types were adapted as necessary to ensure specific parameters within the Design Code were met, meaning that additional build costs through the production of new bespoke house types were avoided. The in-depth knowledge of The Noble Consultancy on the client’s standard product type and experience in preparing drawings from a technical and construction perspective, meant that all building regulations and construction details were compliant.

Conclusion

A detailed reserved matters application was approved for the client which mirrored the densities and coverage obtained in the initial site feasibility sketch layouts.