Out-Law / Your Daily Need-To-Know

Redrow submits plans for 7,000-home north west Cardiff "garden city"

12 Dec 2014, 4:48 pm

Developer Redrow Homes and landowner Plymouth Estates have submitted outline plans to the City of Cardiff Council for a proposed 7,000-home urban extension to the north west of Cardiff, designed using the principles of the garden city movement.

Plans submitted to the Council last month propose a residential-led mixed-use development of up to 5,970 new homes on farmland approximately 7 km to the north west of Cardiff city centre. The area has been allocated in the Council's emerging local development plan as a strategic site capable of delivering around 5,000 of the 41,100 homes required in Cardiff by 2026.

The new development, to be known as Plasdŵr, would include a district centre with a 5,000 square metre food store, around 50 to 70 retail units and up to 15,000 sq m of office floorspace. Up to a further 6,900 sq m of retail space has been proposed in three local centres, which would include a niche food and leisure location within converted listed buildings at the existing Pentrebane Farm.

According to a planning statement submitted with the November application, the majority of the 5,970 homes would be family homes between two and three storeys high and up to 30% would be affordable housing. The plans also include three primary schools and a secondary school. Up to 45% of the site would comprise structural open space, including 19 hectares of formal recreational space, two allotments sites and eight playgrounds.

Separate applications were submitted by the developers in September for a further 920 homes and a fourth primary school on sites neighbouring the area covered by the November application.

"Plasdŵr will combine a historical countryside setting with the convenience of being on the outskirts of a capital city," said Redrow project director for Plasdŵr, Martin Rees, in a statement. "Cardiff desperately needs new housing on a large scale, but creating a 21st century garden city on the outskirts of our capital represents a much bigger opportunity than just providing homes."

"Our vision for Plasdŵr is to take the principles of the garden city movement – sustainable community living, plenty of beautiful open spaces, self-contained yet well-connected – and create a place where current and future generations will be proud to live, work and play," said Rees.

According to the statement, work is expected to begin at the site in 2016, subject to planning permission, and last up to 20 years.