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Ebbsfleet Garden City is being developed across the local authority boundary areas of Dartford and Gravesham.
Ebbsfleet Development Corporation (EDC) was established by Government in 2015 to deliver the Garden City, by enhancing the ambition, quality and pace of development. EDC is the plan determining authority for the Ebbsfleet area, however Dartford, Gravesham and Kent County Council remain the plan making authorities.
EDC has developed the Ebbsfleet Implementation Framework to establish the masterplanning framework for development in Ebbsfleet, and has also published a suite of design guidance ( www.designforebbsfleet.org ) that is material consideration to planning applications in Ebbsfleet.
The Ebbsfleet Implementation Framework (2017) establishes the masterplanning principles that will guide the development of Ebbsfleet as a 21st Century Garden City.
The Framework interprets the Town and Country Planning Association’s Garden City principles to promote health and wellbeing in the planning and design of neighbourhoods, parks, streets and buildings. The masterplan has also been shaped by the needs and aspirations of local communities, the opportunities created by the unique landscape and quarrying heritage, and the opportunity afforded by its positions as a key regional transport interchange.
Learn more about the vision for Ebbsfleet as a 21st Century Garden City, and the guiding masterplanning principles for its development.
EDC has developed the DesignforEbbsfleet website to provide a one-stop-shop for all design guidance within the Garden City.
All of EDC’s guidance documents have been developed with partners and stakeholders, and engaged upon with the public, to ensure they carry maximum weight and are a material consideration within the planning system.
This hub includes the following key design guides:
The Design for Ebbsfleet Character Guide provides an introduction to the landscape and cultural heritage of the local area, and illustrates how they can be used to create characterful places and buildings that are distinctive to Ebbsfleet. The guide includes four design languages developed by Proctor Matthews, and derived from four of Ebbsfleet’s landscape types. Applicants are encouraged to use these languages to satisfy the requirements for characterful and distinctive scheme designs.
Find out more about our approach to characterful and distinctive design.
The Ebbsfleet Public Realm Strategy puts the Garden into the Garden City. The guidance has been co-developed with Kent County Council and our partners to promote streets that support green, happy and healthy lives. It includes pre-approved exemplar street layouts, hard surfacing specifications and planting guidance that can be used by applicants to ensure streets, parks and open spaces deliver on peoples expectations for a Garden City.
Use the Public Realm Strategy to inform your next street or public realm scheme.
The Ebbsfleet Sustainable Travel Strategy establishes EDC’s preferred approach to the planning and design of sustainable travel facilities and services, and an evidence led approach to accommodating cars.
Use the Sustainable Travel Strategy inform your transport strategy, parking strategy, charging provision, and parking management plan.
EDC provides a range of design review services to support applicants through the planning process:
EDC has a small team of design advisors with expertise across urban design, architecture, landscape design, accessibility and sustainability. Design advisors work alongside Planning Officers to provide a design management service as part of the planning application process. Design advisors attend pre-app meetings, undertaking benchmarking assessments, technical design reviews, and providing constructive advice to support Planning Officers and applicants to achieve optimum design performance.
EDC also provides an independent design review panel service to provide applicants with the very best advice from the broadest range of expertise in the region. The Ebbsfleet Design Forum has been developed as a collective review model, encouraging the Forum members and the applicant and their design team to review in a round-table format that promotes constructive discussion.
All significant projects being submitted for planning approval are expected to be reviewed by the Ebbsfleet Design Forum, and EDC will also be taking its own projects to the Forum.
EDC employs a range of design tools to benchmark performance across key design areas including urban design, housing quality, accessibility and sustainability. These tools support the design review service, and allow an objective and quantative assessment and monitoring of design performance across Ebbsfleet over time.
These assessments are also used within the design review services to support applicants in understanding where their projects are under-performing, and the areas meeting best practice.
The following tools are available to help you:
EDC expects all significant residential projects to undertake a ‘Building for a Healthy Life’ assessment, and encourages applicants to provide an independent assessment at the application stage and seek commendation from the scheme. EDC will only recommend a scheme to Planning Committee for approval when it meets 9 out of 12 greens, and has no reds. EDC uses it’s Design for Ebbsfleet, Public Realm Strategy and Sustainable Travel Strategy guidance to assess the relevant categories within the ‘building for a healthy life’ assessment framework.
Use the Building for a Healthy Life Tool.
EDC has also adopted the Building with Nature tool to benchmark the design of landscape in its parks and open spaces. EDC encourages applicants to utilise the Building with Nature tool from early in the design process and seek accreditation, to ensure healthy, green and sustainable feature are incorporated into the design of our streets and public spaces.
Use the Building with Nature Tool.
EDC’s housing design objectives promote the delivery of a wide range of homes and tenures for all life stages, that meet local aspirations including the affordable housing requirements as set out in the planning policies of Dartford and Gravesham Boroughs.
To deliver against these objectives EDC uses the following design requirements for all housing projects:
EDC developed the Public Realm Strategy to promote healthier street design, and to specifically ensure the level street trees and planting delivered within the public realm is aligned with the ambition for a Garden City.
To allow an evaluation and monitoring of this requirement, EDC benchmarks all street layouts within schemes coming through the planning process, against the appropriate street type layout within the Public Realm Strategy exemplar street designs section ( Section 4), and expects all schemes meet the following key performance indicators;
