The Monks Farm site is now part of a Strategic Housing Site within the Council’s Five Year Housing Land Supply Statement. HDA provided landscape, ecology and arboricultural support both for the allocation submission and for the outline planning application that followed. Our combined influence led to the development of a Green Infrastructure Strategy for the site and Biodiversity offsetting calculations.
Our involvement with the site started in 1999 looking at the visibility and sensitivity of the area surrounding Grove and Wantage, with a view to identifying suitable areas of land for the allocation of housing and employment sites in The Vale of White Horse District Local Plan. The 1999 assessment concluded that land to the north of Grove is relatively well contained in the wider landscape.
In 2009, HDA prepared a Preliminary Landscape Assessment of Land at Monk’s Farm in support of LDF representations. Since that point, HDA has successfully supported the development of phases 1a and 1b of the site, gaining planning permission and reserved matters consent for both phases. Our support took the form of specialists reporting for all three disciplines, detailed planting plans and specialist advice through the construction period.
