Developing four new garden community proposals for the next Swale Borough Plan

Swale New Garden Communities

Swale Borough Council is one of the fastest growing Councils in England with a minimum housing target exceeding 1,050 new homes each year. The challenging part? The borough is constrained, with the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) to the south and the rest of the borough reliant on the M2 Motorway.

Together with the Council, officers, and developers, we created strategic development options to deliver new homes within these constraints. These options, scoped as four new garden communities, have been developed over the last three years. We started with a new community prospectus and ended with a comprehensive critical assessment of four proposals.

Our team has managed the entire process and provided a range of planning and technical services to both critically assess and improve the proposals. We have worked in partnership with the developers so their proposals best reflect local aspirations but still remain practical and viable to deliver. One of the proposals includes the UK’s first privately-funded and delivered motorway junctions.  

The Council now proposes to take the garden community sites through the first formal stages of the next development plan.