Green theme for garden village

A garden village next to the M54 being planned by Lord Newport of Bradford Estates will be much focused on environmental sustainability, with solar power, cycle paths and battery-charging points

LET me take you to Junction 3 of the M54. Yes, it’s an unlikely sounding location for a £40m project spearheaded by Lord Newport, managing director of Bradford Estates and family steward of a chunk of Shropshire going back a thousand years.

This is a landowner diversifying – and then some. The ancestral seat, Weston Park, was gifted to the nation by the Earl of Bradford in 1986, but the rest of the estate houses tenant farmers, businesses, residential properties and managed woodlands.

Bradford Estates’ portfolio includes 12,000 acres beside the M54 and it wants to build what it calls ‘a sustainable gardenvillage-style settlement’ of 3,000 homes, as well as 1.8m sq ft of commercial space, looking to create 8,000 jobs and hoping to boost the local Shropshire economy to the tune of £390m a year.

The development scale is both bold and green, looking to make the new community net zero carbon once completed, “to help combat Shropshire’s climate emergency”.

I’m not sure land off the M54 has a uniquely dense carbon cloak compared to the rest of the motorway network but the sustainable ambition is laudable, with Shropshire Council on a mission to become net zero carbon from 2030.

“During the current COVID-19 lockdown, we have seen a staggering reduction in carbon levels across the country,” says Lord Newport, who commissioned global consultancy WSP to produce a viability study.

“As we look to the future, we need to ensure we don’t revert to old habits, which will return emissions to pre-pandemic levels. This means a new approach to considering the environmental impact of everything we do, including future developments like J3.”

There are plans to generate nearly half the electricity needed to power the development from solar photovoltaic panels, with the balance sourced through further panels placed elsewhere across the estate.

“In addition to using designs that complement and are in keeping with the local area, the new homes and commercial buildings will incorporate inbuilt solutions to reduce energy consumption,” says Newport.

Travel reduction is at the heart of the project, designing a self-sufficient community in terms of living and working, requiring less travel and a significant reduction in car use and transport emissions.

The plans incorporate new amenities such as retail, schools and recreational areas, as well as medical and doctors’ facilities, further reducing the need to travel, while at the same time alleviating pressure on local services outside the project.

There will be travel future-proofing, too, with battery-charging points for electric cars, buses and other greener modes of transport, cycle paths and walkways across the estate, and proposals for woodland parks and outdoor sports facilities.

“In addition to having an environmentally friendly completed development, we want to be as sustainable as possible during the build process and are currently investigating solutions for how this could be achieved,” adds Lord Newport.

By all accounts he is not the first innovator in the family. His ancestors played their part in paving and lighting the Lancashire town of Bolton, as well as developing Walsall in the West Midlands. However, Junction 3 of the M54 might just prove the most innovative of the lot.