Bath-based housing group Curo’s 700-home Mulberry Park development on the city’s outskirts has been described as an ‘unqualified success’ and England’s best current scheme in an assessment based on its impact on people and nature.
The development on the 48-acre former Foxhill MoD site includes community facilities and open spaces as well as a range of homes for sale and social rent.
Curo’s flagship scheme, it has attracted widespread praise from housing industry, architecture and regeneration organisations since construction work started in 2016.
The latest praise came after Mulberry Park was assessed against the Building for a Healthy Life principles – a group of standards set up to promote the creation neighbourhoods that are better for people and nature.
The author of the design code, Design for Homes chief executive, David Birkbeck, said: “It’s been tough to get round everything built this year, but Mulberry Park was a joy to visit and the scheme we’d rank highest in England currently.
“It’s the perfect model of placemaking, rather than just housebuilding, a neighbourhood that puts healthier lifestyles first, with streets and public spaces so well landscaped that people will want to use them for a leisurely walk either to its excellent facilities or the rest of Bath beyond.
“It’s going to have everything, plenty of great quality open space like the future park and woodland walk, as well as pedestrian connections to the city centre and super-wide pavements with proper, mature street trees like you used to see.
“It also has so many services on site that residents need – the school, nursery, café and even work and employment space.”
The Building for a Healthy Life design code was developed in partnership with NHS England to encourage the planning of healthier lifestyles into new housing developments.
The guidance promotes improved connections for walking, cycling and public transport, helping to cut pollution and enhance air quality.
David Birkbeck added: “The street layout is so rational and beautifully landscaped, it’s got to be one of the best we’ve seen in decades for encouraging people to walk.
“If that helps people walk sometimes instead of taking the car every time, it’ll cut the number of pointless short car journeys that are driving up traffic and air pollution.
“There are also other design features to the homes that will make a real difference, such as recessed balconies for apartments. These offer more privacy, encouraging residents to use them more often and to sit outdoors when at home.
“The benefit of all that extra daylight in a decade or so of occupancy cannot be stressed enough.
“We consider the scheme to be an unqualified success, an extremely high-quality example of Building for a Healthy Life principles.”
Curo chief executive Victor da Cunha said more than 370 families were now living at Mulberry Park and its growing community was going from strength to strength.
“We’re proud to be building a new neighbourhood that is futureproof, sustainable and that encourages and enables better health for its residents,” he added.
In 2019 Mulberry Park’s £10m The Hub community building won the South West Community Benefit category at the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Awards.
The award recognises outstanding achievement in providing a facility which directly benefits the local community and can demonstrate its success through local community feedback.
Curo, which manages more than 13,000 homes across the region and builds hundreds of new ones a year, last year received £51.1m to build a further 1,067 new affordable homes across the South West and South East by March 2024 with Essex-based Swan Housing Association.
Pictured, top: Drone shot of Mulberry Park (image: Curo). Centre: Mulberry Park street scene (Andrew Sykes/Curo). Bottom: Mulberry Way at Mulberry Park (Rebecca Faith/Curo)
