Tasley Garden Village is a proposed development location identified as a draft allocation in the emerging new Shropshire Local Plan to meet the growth and development needs of Bridgnorth over the next fifteen years, as well as helping to meet wider housing needs.
The site is located to the southwest of Bridgnorth, south of the A458 and west of the B4364 Ludlow Road. In addition to its connections to Bridgnorth, it also has good links to the towns of Shrewsbury, Stourbridge, Wolverhampton and Telford. It benefits from existing facilities and services within Bridgnorth and will provide new local services and facilities for the new and existing communities.
Tasley Garden Village is a development of homes, community facilities and employment space identified as a proposed allocation in the draft Shropshire Local Plan to meet the growth and development needs of Bridgnorth over the next fifteen years, as well as helping to meet wider housing needs.
Local Plans are the key documents through which local planning authorities set out a vision and framework for the future development of the area, engaging with their communities in doing so. Local Plans address needs and opportunities in relation to housing, the local economy, community facilities and infrastructure. The Local Plan provides a degree of certainty for communities, businesses and investors, and a framework for guiding decisions on individual planning applications.
Local planning authorities, such as Shropshire Council, have a statutory responsibility to maintain an up-to-date Local Plan, and national policy indicates that Local Plans should be regularly reviewed, with the expectation this is done at least every five years.
The current adopted development plan for Shropshire Council comprises the Shropshire Core Strategy (adopted 2011) and the Site Allocations and Management of Development (SAMDev – adopted 2015). With the Shropshire Development Plan is now significantly out of date. Shropshire Council is at an advanced stage of adopting a new Local Plan for the period 2016 – 2038.
The draft Local Plan allocation originally identified an initial site alongside additional land for potential future growth. Having reviewed the site in more detail, minor amendments have been proposed to the site area and it is now proposed to bring the garden village forward as one complete site.
The original Taylor Wimpey masterplan, prepared in 2020, envisaged residential development being delivered by a single developer starting from the eastern edge, moving westwards into the site. This directly informed the draft allocation boundary in the Local Plan and reflected the land control position at the time. Subsequently, Bloor Homes became involved with a new land control position. This meant that the site can now begin delivering residential development in two separate phases through new access points from both the A458 and Ludlow Road. This enables a holistic approach to delivery, enabling infrastructure and services to be delivered much earlier than would previously have been the case, whilst strengthening the Council’s housing land supply position in the early years of the Local Plan.
Our approach to submitting an outline planning application for the entire site will ensure the delivery of a holistic development, with the planning and delivery of infrastructure requirements for the entire development and wider community at an early stage. This includes highways improvements to accommodate the Garden Village, and ensuring that services within the new community, such as the school and other facilities, are of an appropriate scale and location from the outset.
Informed by and building on the vision for Tasley Garden Village set out in the draft new Local Plan, Bloor Homes and Taylor Wimpey is proposing a site-wide holistic development delivering:
- A landscape-led development of up to 1,500 high quality homes in a range of styles and tenures, with a bespoke design approach unique to Tasley Garden Village.
- Up to 20% of the new homes will be affordable homes, providing opportunities for key workers and people on low incomes to secure a home of their own in Bridgnorth.
- Opportunities to provide homes for people seeking to downsize into more manageable homes or secure an accessible property, including the potential to provide bungalows.
- Specialist Older People’s accommodation.
- A new two-form entry primary school to meet the needs of the new community.
- A community hub providing a range of facilities including local convenience retail, community space, and mobility hub.
- 14.6ha of employment land, with uses geared towards commercial space, light industrial and agri-business.
- A masterplan shaped by the existing landscape, with the retention of the vast majority of trees and hedgerows on the site, augmented by the planting of hundreds of new trees.
- The creation of extensive areas of green public open space throughout the new community.
- A 19.5ha country park providing opportunities for recreation and habitat enhancement.
- A network of walking and cycling routes through extensive green open space on land that has previously been largely inaccessible to the public.
- Sports pitches for community use.
- A focus on connectivity with Bridgnorth Town, including speed limit reductions on the A458 with signal-controlled crossing points and a development designed to accommodate potential bus routes.
- An extensive package of investment into local infrastructure and services, as well Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) payments which are expected to be in excess of £20million (at current prices) to be generated by the development.
The plans for Tasley Garden Village are still at an early stage, with a holistic outline application now being prepared. Feedback from this consultation will help to shape the emerging outline plans prior to the outline planning application being submitted.
An outline planning application establishes the broad principles of development, such as access arrangements, illustrative concept layout, number of homes and general extent of development.
If outline planning consent is granted, detailed planning applications called Reserved Matters planning applications would be prepared for each phase of the development as they come forward. These planning applications would include more detail such as house types, architecture, materials, detailed layout and landscaping, and would be subject to further consultation with the local community before being submitted for determination.
We would welcome your feedback as to the types of homes that should be provided at Tasley Garden Village.
Whilst we are still at a very early stage in preparing the plans, and the final appearance of the homes will be determined through Reserved Matters planning applications which are submitted once outline planning permission has been received.
However, we envisage a bespoke design approach to Tasley Garden Village, giving it a unique and distinctive look, following broad garden village principles.
It is anticipated that up to 20% of the homes at Tasley Garden Village will be provided as affordable housing.
We anticipate the potential to provide bungalows and accessible homes as part of the housing mix, as well as specialist older people’s accommodation.
The employment uses at Tasley Garden Village are anticipated to be geared towards commercial office and potentially agri-business related. There is scope for light-industrial uses, but it is not envisaged that logistics warehousing or distribution centres would be appropriate for this location.
While things are at an early stage, it is envisaged that the Local Centre could include local convenience retail, community spaces, potential café/hospitality uses etc. While there is scope to accommodate healthcare provision within the proposed local centre at Tasley Garden Village, the indication from the local NHS is that their priority is to receive funding from the development to expand the existing Northgate Health Centre.
A two-form entry primary school will be provided centrally within Tasley Garden Village.
Investing in healthcare provision will be an important consideration as the proposals move forward through the planning process. Engagement is taking place with the local NHS Integrated Care Board to understand their requirements for investment to expand local healthcare services with funding to be generated by the proposed development. Once an outline planning application is submitted for Tasley Garden Village, Shropshire Council will also be undertaking statutory consultation with the Integrated Care Board, along with a range of other statutory bodies and organisations.
While we had proposed scope to accommodate healthcare provision within the proposed local centre at Tasley Garden Village, the current indication from the local NHS is that their priority is to receive funding from the development to expand the existing Northgate Health Centre. It is envisaged at this early stage that the development will provide in the region of £1.6 - £1.8 million to facilitate this expansion. This will be confirmed through statutory consultation on the outline planning application once submitted.
Approximately 50.5ha of the overall site area will be provided as open space. This includes public green open spaces throughout the neighbourhood and at the Country Park, playing fields, habitat areas and trees and hedgerows.
It is intended that the overwhelming majority of the existing trees and hedgerows on the site will be retained and augmented with the planting of hundreds of new trees. Only minimal removals will be required to facilitate access into and through the site, but any such losses will be more than compensated for with new planting. The emerging concept masterplan for the site is very much shaped by existing landscape features such as trees and hedgerows, with proposed development parcels broadly following existing field patterns.
It is envisaged that the development will deliver Biodiversity Net Gain in line with national requirements, and if possible exceed this.
The majority of the site is located outside of any flood zones. However, there is a flood zone associated with the Tiddle Brook within the southernmost extents of the site. No development is proposed in this zone, which we are proposing should be used to create part of a new country park for Bridgnorth.
In terms of primary vehicular access, the site will be served by two access points linked by a spine road through the garden village. One access point will be taken from the A458 to the west of Bridgnorth, with the other being from the B4364 on the eastern edge of the site. There will be an additional separate access to the employment land from the A458 further to the west.
There will be a network of walking and cycling routes throughout the garden village, with links to encourage trips into Bridgnorth on foot or by bicycle.
A package of improvements to the A458 are envisaged to facilitate active travel links with the town, including signal-controlled crossing points and a speed limit reduction on the A458 to calm traffic.
Details of highways improvements, access details, junction works etc are being worked on in close collaboration with Shropshire Council Highways and there will be further detail as the outline plans move forward.
We are at the very earliest stages of the planning process, with an outline planning application being prepared. It is envisaged that an outline application for the site will be submitted in the Spring of 2025. For a development of this scale and importance, the process of then determining the planning application could take until towards the end of 2025, possibly into 2026. If outline planning permission is received at that point, we would then need to start preparing Reserved Matters planning applications for the first phases of the development. Assuming the first Reserved Matters planning applications are submitted in mid-2026 and determined later that year, it could be envisaged that work on the first phases could commence in early 2027, with further phases coming forward over subsequent years. We would expect that the development would be completed by 2041.
We want to understand the views and aspirations of people in Bridgnorth and the surrounding areas to help us shape the emerging proposals. This will ensure our plans are designed to best meet the needs and aspirations of the growing community. We are carrying out in-depth consultation with the community before submitting planning applications for Tasley Garden Village.
We have created a purpose-built consultation website – www.tasleygardenvillage.uk - and in December 2024 we carried out the first stage of consultation to provide the community with an opportunity to view the emerging proposals and highlight ideas and suggestions.
The website has now been updated with a second stage of consultation providing further information about the proposals as they take shape towards an outline planning application.
We are also holding drop-in exhibitions of the proposals in the local community. These will take place as follows:
Wednesday 12th February 2025
Bridgnorth Rugby Club, Bandon Lane, Bridgnorth, WV15 5AD
2pm – 7pm
Thursday 13th February 2025
St Leonard’s Hall Church, Racecourse Drive, Tasley, WV16 4NR
11am – 5pm
Once the planning applications are submitted there will be a further opportunity for you to have your say when Shropshire Council carries out their own Statutory Consultation on our plans.