Outline planning consent has been granted for up to 800 new homes on a greenfield windfall site in Birmingham by the Secretary of State following a public inquiry in October 2018. FPCR were appointed as the project masterplanners in 2014 and provided landscape, ecology and arboricultural evidence on behalf of Bloor Homes at the subsequent Appeal.
The scheme will provide up to 280 affordable homes, a new community hub and land for a new primary school in a sustainable urban location. The green infrastructure proposals create a network of parkland, woodland and wetland which will bisect and wrap around the site and open up significant new areas of public open space for both the new and existing community. The Secretary of State agreed with the Inspector’s recommendation and considered that weight should be attached to the benefits provided by “the on-site open space and play provision and opening up of public open access to an attractive area of open space” and “a net increase in the habitat and biodiversity.”
