Site Assessments

TEKSS is a responsible developer and the site has undergone a rigorous assessment process to ensure it is sensitively designed to account for local ecology, topography and visual amenity. The assessment process has informed the design of the scheme but will also improve knowledge of the biodiversity and cultural heritage of the land on the Estate.

We have carried out a range of environmental and technical assessments over the past few months. These include:

• Agricultural Land Classification studies
• Arboricultural assessments
• Ecology studies, including Biodiversity Net Gain Calculations and a Natural Assets & Environmental Gain assessment
• Construction traffic assessments
• Flood Risk Assessment
• Heritage assessment
• Landscape & Visual Impact Assessment, including photomontages and an assessment of cumulative impact
• Noise assessment
• Topographical assessment

Key studies

A summary of some of the core environmental and technical assessments that have been undertaken are detailed below:

Landscape Assessment

An assessment of the visual impact of the development on neighbouring properties and key locations.

The design of the scheme has evolved during this assessment with locations of proposed boundaries being moved to ensure that they benefit fully from local topography and locations of additional planting identified.

Cultural heritage

An assessment of existing cultural heritage features in and around the site. This includes a review of known records, heritage assets and identifying buried archaeology on site.

Onsite geophysical work may be required to scan the ground and potentially trial pits to physically inspect the site in due course.

Ecology & biodiversity

An assessment of the local wildlife and habitats. TEKSS has committed to keeping the development 5 metres from existing hedgerows to reduce any potential impact on wildlife. A key aim of the project is to produce net biodiversity benefits and the draft design incorporates various ecological buffers and features. The Biodiversity Net Gain calculations shows a 134% gain on new habitats and 62% gain on new hedgerows.

Transport

An assessment that looks at the transport routes for the construction period along with routes for operational traffic.

Vehicle movements are weighted heavily towards the construction period which tends to be a fairly short period (circa four months) and it is important to ensure that traffic is managed throughout this period to ensure local schools and peak travel hours are accommodated to maximise safety and minimise impacts on local residents.

Once operational vehicle movements will be low, and in fact considerably lower than is required for the current farming of the land.

We have worked closely with the local community to try and minimise impacts from construction traffic by establishing an alternative main construction route.

We submitted a planning application in December 2021. A development timeline can be seen here.

A copy of the relevant planning application documents can be viewed here.