We are incredibly proud of the way in which everyone involved with the Langarth project have been working together to develop plans to create a new community with green infrastructure at its heart.
This week we heard that the Garden Village scheme has received a Building with Nature Design Award.
The UK’s first green infrastructure benchmark, the voluntary Building with Nature scheme aims to support and encourage developers to create high-quality, sustainable places where people and nature can thrive.
This is great news for Cornwall Council and for the Langarth Garden Village project.
We want Langarth Garden Village to be a vibrant, connected, sustainable and well-planned community and have worked hard to develop a scheme which will protect the environment and wildlife, and create a new community that sits within a biodiverse and hard-working landscape.
By working from the landscape upwards, protecting and enhancing green space, maintaining existing and creating new Cornish hedges, planting trees, creating diverse, natural green space for everything from leisure, sport, play, growing, wildlife and nature, and soft engineering, incorporating elements of ‘eco’ living and promoting high quality building design, our plans will create a nature friendly development at Langarth at the same time as setting a “gold standard” for all future development in Cornwall.
You can view a film about the Langarth Garden Village scheme here :
Earlier this year Dr Gemma Jerome, Director of Building with Nature, visited the site to see how our proposals put nature at the heart of development by providing high quality green and open spaces which are good for people and for wildlife, alongside new high quality, well designed homes, education, health, cultural and leisure facilities, and innovative and flexible workspaces.
You can find out more about that visit and view a short film about our plans to create a sustainable place that really deliver for people and wildlife here
Speaking after the visit Dr Jerome said “Research shows that by putting nature at the heart of development, we can build better for wildlife, better for our climate and better for people’s health.
“We are delighted that Cornwall Council is using our Building with Nature Standards to develop a great scheme at Langarth and look forward to working with them to ensure that their plans meet the standards needed to achieve accreditation and see their exciting and ambitious vision become reality.”
Our masterplan includes around 45% of green space within the site (compared with just 19% in the previous planning applications). The proposed scheme works with the landscape to make the most of the natural environment; retaining as much of the existing field pattern as possible by retaining the majority of hedgerows, preserving green spaces and creating new community hubs for everyone to use and enjoy.
As well as preserving green space and protecting existing Cornish hedges, the plans include the creation of new hedges, rivers and wetland areas to provide habitats for insects, songbirds and badgers; using sustainable drainage as a natural flood prevention system and planting over 5 hectares (12 acres) of new woodland as part of the Forest for Cornwall and other trees throughout the site to support cleaner air and help capture carbon.
A tree nursery has also been created on the site which hosted its first school visit in September.
Together these measures will increase biodiversity by up to 20% across the whole site compared with the current farmland.
The BwN Design Award is used to accredit projects at an early stage of design, including, as is the case with Langarth, at outline planning application stage.
This can then be followed by a BwN Full Award which is used to accredit projects at a more detailed stage of design and includes a post construction check to ensure that the development has met the BwN standards.
