Haworth Tompkins is leading a multidisciplinary masterplan team including Kjellander Sjöberg, Grounded Practice, Periscope, Arup, Stantec and Michael Pawlyn. In addition, Haworth Tompkins is leading the development of the Detailed Component of the hybrid planning application, alongside Jas Bhalla Works, Bell Phillips, HAT Projects and Periscope, which will see around 800 homes, retail and employment spaces, and strategic green infrastructure designed in detail alongside the masterplan, all to be submitted for planning in Summer 2025.

The masterplan offers an opportunity to synthesise many strands of work we are passionate about – thinking about how we will live, collaborate, exchange and work with respect and understanding for our natural environment.

Ecology and future landscape resilience has underpinned the strategic development of our masterplan; the current site is formed of arable farmland, interspersed with hedgerow corridors of ecological importance splitting the site into development parcels.

From inception, our approach has been to retain and augment existing hedgerows, as part of a green active travel corridor, thickening existing hedgerows to form more complete and resilient ecosystems across the site and using the open monocultural farming plots, which have been stripped of their ecological and soil value from decades of intensive use, for development.

The three new communities are linked by a Rapid Transport System, the active spine of the site, along which several new public spaces and neighbourhood centres with non-residential uses are arranged, including schools, health facilities, shops, workspace and cultural uses. These non-residential uses are strategically arranged in a matrix of active travel routes designed to reduce car dominance and create healthy, sustainable and connected communities.

We seek to harness local physical resources, and global intellectual resources; with the material language and infrastructure of the development shaped by and attuned to local ecology, topography and infrastructure – whilst retaining a global outlook in terms of ambition and being at the forefront of sustainable living and innovation. As an economic proposition, we see TCBGC as an incubator and an accelerator, one that creates fertile ground for micro-clusters of start-ups and small businesses and creates support for creative workspaces, community facilities and the emergence of green skills in Essex, from the first phases of the development. This burgeoning entrepreneurial spirit will complement a thriving, resourceful, creative and enduring community.