Housing Infrastructure Fund Business Case - HIF/FF/000288/BC/01 - Beaulieu Station and North East Bypass: Chelmsford Bid Details Lead Authority Essex County Is it a joint bid with other Local Authorities? No Contact Details First name Gary Last name MacDonnell Email Address [email protected] Telephone number Are you an agent making this submission on behalf of one or multiple Local Authorities? No Are the contact details provided above for the lead responsible officer for the project at the local authority? Yes Page 1 of 197 Project Summary What is the name of the scheme Beaulieu Station and North East Bypass: Chelmsford Please provide an Executive Summary for your proposal Essex has major ambitions for housing growth: to enable over 180,000 new homes in the next 20 years. Essex is a growing, attractive and competitive place for people to live and for business to locate. The County hosts two major London airports at Stansted and Southend, three major shipping ports at Tilbury, Harwich and London Gateway, and Essex and Anglia Ruskin universities. The County borders London with excellent connectivity to the Capital. Chelmsford and Braintree enjoy a buoyant housing market (Att. 1.1.2a) with excellent demand, developer investment appetite and strong house and land values. Chelmsford City Council delivers over 1,000 homes a year, including 300 a year in the North East (NE) Chelmsford growth corridor towards Braintree. The inspector found Chelmsfords Local Plan sound in February 2019 - subject to main modifications that do not affect either housing numbers or site allocations. NE Chelmsford Garden Community continues the highly successful development already underway at Beaulieu. This bid is for £217.9m capital funding for Beaulieu Station and Chelmsford North East Bypass, to support 14,109 new homes in four popular communities in the Chelmsford to Braintree corridor: • NE Chelmsford Garden Community (10,559) • Broomfield (450) • Great Leighs (1,100) • Great Notley (2,000) 10,500 homes depend on the Station and Bypass (Att. 1.1.2b). Of the total 14,109 homes only 3,609 would come forward without the infrastructure, due to market failure. Further development in NE Chelmsford cannot proceed without the Station and Bypass. Development on the site with planning permission in NE Chelmsford (Beaulieu) is capped at 2,500 homes without the Station through a Section 106 agreement (Att. 1.1.2c, p44). Chelmsford’s Local Plan Policy S11 (Att. 1.1.2d) requires the Station and the Bypass for further phases of proposed development. The new homes in the four sites put pressure on the existing road network, requiring the Bypass. The Station also needs the Bypass as modelling suggests that the Station will attract 1000+ trips from existing settlements in the peak hour when it opens, limiting the capacity for traffic from new homes. However, the Station is too expensive for the sites to pay for through developer contributions and there is no alternative public or private sector investment. The Bypass is a cashflow and viability issue. The new road unlocks the homes on these four sites and supports the Station. However, the sites cannot provide enough funding to pay for the road until they are built out in 2036. Developer contributions to road improvements will fund dualling of the Bypass to unlock further growth from the 2030s. Without HIF funding, 10,500 homes and the implementation of Chelmsford’s Local Plan is at risk. Chelmsford and Braintree are ready to deliver new homes. There is an established NE Chelmsford Garden Village Consortium leading the Garden Community, a planning performance agreement is in place for the site and a Garden Community bid submitted to government. Chelmsford and Braintree Councils have a long history working with Countryside, the main developer. They also work closely with site promoters at Broomfield, Great Leighs and Great Notley, and the breadth of developers across the sites gives resilience to our delivery rates. Infrastructure delivery will be through robust local and regional partnerships. Partners in Essex have been developing the preparatory work for the Station and Bypass for over a decade and they are now integral to the spatial strategy of housing growth in Chelmsford’s Local Plan. ECC has a demonstrable track record of delivering large-scale infrastructure projects enhanced by strong working relationships with Department for Transport and Network Rail (NR). Schemes are run through defined programme and project boards, to tight budgets and time constraints; these infrastructure programmes will be managed in the same way. The infrastructure unlocks wider benefits. Beaulieu Station relieves Chelmsford Station and reduces car trips into the City, Page 2 of 197 supporting housing growth within the town. Beaulieu Station’s passing loops also improve resilience on the Great Eastern Main Line to Norwich, supporting housing along the whole route. In summary, the delivery of the Station and Bypass will enable 10,500 new homes. The scheme will both immediately benefit this locality in the current plan period to 2036 and sustain high quality housing growth in this corridor for the next thirty years. Essex is one of the best places in the UK to achieve Government’s aspirations for housing development at scale, facilitating community integration, connectivity, economic growth, and improving living standards for all. Please provide an overview of the project, including your project scope for the infrastructure and for the wider project The project supports 14,109 new homes in four popular communities in the Chelmsford to Braintree corridor: NE Chelmsford Garden Community (10,559); Broomfield (450); Great Leighs (1,100); Great Notley (2,000). 10,500 homes depend on the Station and Bypass (Att. 1.1.2b). Of the total 14,109 homes only 3,609 would come forward without the infrastructure. Chelmsford City Council (CCC)’s Local Plan to 2036 sets out this growth. The inspector found it sound in February 2019 (subject to main modifications which do not affect the amount of housing or site allocations - Att. 1.1.3a). CCC’s spatial strategy (Policy S9) describes growth along the corridor. Homes • NE Chelmsford Garden Community includes four phases: completing 3,059 homes remaining of 3,600 with consent at Beaulieu; 3,000 homes on Phase 1 of NE Chelmsford by 2036; and Phase 2 (2,500) and Phase 3 (2,000) after 2036. • Broomfield village on the edge of Chelmsford will grow by 450 homes by 2024. • Great Leighs will nearly double in size with 1,100 more homes delivered between 2021 and 2036. • Great Notley is a successful garden village in adjacent Braintree District. Braintree's Strategic Section 2 Local Plan proposes expanding the community by 1,750 homes by 2033, with site capacity for 2,000 homes. Infrastructure The Option Assessment Report (OAR - Att. 3.1.1) details the development of the Station and Bypass. Chelmsford’s Local Plan (Att. 1.1.3b) requires the Station and Bypass to ensure the delivery of its NE Chelmsford Garden Community (p144) and the Bypass for the sites in Great Leighs (pp 151, 155, 158) and Broomfield (p161). Each site is required to contribute to the Bypass, as set out in Chelmsford’s Infrastructure Delivery Plan (Att. 1.1.3c pp119-121) and a Statement of Common Ground between Chelmsford and Braintree (Att. 1.1.3d, p6). The new Station will be at the southern end of the NE Chelmsford Garden Community, on the Great Eastern Main Line (GEML) from London and Norwich. Passengers living there will access the station from local walking, cycle and road links and those living in Broomfield, Great Leighs and Great Notley will be able to drive to the station. The commute time into Liverpool Street will be about 40 minutes. The Station will have three platforms, car parking, a public transport interchange, cycling facilities and a turnback/passing loop for trains. The layout provides operational resilience on the network from Norwich to London that currently operates near capacity, which would support housing growth along the length of the line. The Station will be a rail head so some services can start and terminate at Beaulieu as they do today at Chelmsford. This will ensure excellent journey times into London for the new communities. It also releases pressure at Chelmsford’s Station and road network, supporting wider housing growth in the city. The Station has £22m of developer funding linked to Beaulieu’s Section 106 agreement. This imposes a cap on development above 2,500 homes without the station in place, demonstrating the importance of the station to the growth of the Garden Community. The Station also needs the Bypass to unlock 8,400 of the homes in our bid to mitigate traffic impacts from the station and the new housing developments. HIF would fund the completion of a new single carriageway from the A12 at Boreham to the A131 at a new Page 3 of 197 Chatham Green roundabout (north of Broomfield) and dual the A131 from Chatham Green to Deres Bridge roundabout (south of Great Leighs). The route from Great Leighs to Braintree (A131) is already dual carriageway (Att. 1.1.2b). ECC has studied the need for the Bypass since 2005. The OAR describes historic work that led to developing a safeguarded corridor through public consultation and the Local Plan process. We will use developer contributions from unlocked homes to dual the Bypass and improve the A12 at Boreham in the early 2030s to unlock the last phases of NE Chelmsford. Page 4 of 197 Site Details How many housing sites will the funding bring forward? 9 Please provide a list of the housing sites that the funding will bring forward, including the amount of units to be delivered on each site, the lower tier or unitary authority the site is in and the current land ownership Site name No of Local authority Current ownership Planning status Planning reference units Part A – Site 1: 3059 Chelmsford Countryside Zest Outline 09/01314/EIA NE Chelmsford – (Countryside and L&Q) Beaulieu Commentary Outline permission for 3,600 homes (541 delivered to end 18/19 leaving a residual 3,059).