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Architect Reeves Bailey Developer Taylor Woodrow Contractor Taylor Woodrow Planning Authority Chelmsford Borough Council

This is the second scheme in Chelmsford by the same architect/developer team (Awards 2000), this time on a former car park next to typical postwar semi-detached housing in a cul-de-sac layout. The layout offers a radical contrast to the surrounding development, with a density of 37 dwellings per hectare, continuous frontages to relatively narrow streets, a square, and a 'village green' next to an existing footpath.

The design uses the same 'Conservation/ PPG3' kit of standard house plans developed for the earlier scheme, refined from experience, with off-street parking in a mixture of garage courts and drive-through archways. What is interesting is that a higher density and a brownfield context appear to have given a sharper edge to the overall planning: the constraints of the site have generated a distinctive and convincing development with a very definite sense of place. Perhaps there are lessons here about the optimum size and location of developments of this type.