Arup to master-plan 10,000 home St Cuthbert's Garden Village

Carlisle City Council has appointed Arup to lead on the next phase of master-planning for the St Cuthbert’s Garden Village project in Carlisle, a unique and transformational cluster of new villages to the south of the city.

Construction consultancy Arup saw its UK revenue grow 4% in its latest financial year. The firm outpaced the economic growth of the UK as a whole by gaining a number of key contracts, including a multi-million pound redevelopment project for the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. 

Following a hectic 2018, Arup has seen in the new year by adding a number of new projects to its workload. Earlier in 2019, it was announced the firm had entered into a partnership with the Bernard van Leer Foundation to combine their design expertise and knowledge of child development to help improve the lives of some of the world’s most vulnerable children. The partnership includes using Virtual Reality testing to provide a child’s perspective on urban environments, which can be taken into account during project planning.

Now, Arup has been tasked with bringing together the firm’s unique set of multidisciplinary skills for a different challenge altogether: the master-planning of a new garden village in Cumbria. The plan will include urban design, planning and transport, in order to prepare for the execution of the St Cuthbert’s Garden Village project, the largest in the Government’s current Garden Village programme. Arup will be supported by Hive Land and Planning, with the two building upon comprehensive work already undertaken by Carlisle City Council to deliver the Stage 2 Framework Master-plan.

According to local news outlet Cumbia Crack, St Cuthbert’s will deliver approximately 10,000 new homes including a significant provision of affordable housing, improvements to infrastructure and services. This will include new schools, public transport and access to the countryside and green spaces to be enjoyed by residents of the City and the St Cuthbert’s area. The project will also complement plans for a strategic link road, a move which has enabled it to benefit from an allocation of £102 million from the Government’s Housing Infrastructure Fund, on top of £300,000 from the Garden Communities Programme.

Commenting on the plans, Leader of Carlisle City Council Colin Glover said, “The master-planning appointment is another important step forward for our ambitious plans for Carlisle and the Borderlands region. We are a growing city and as part of the garden village proposal, we aim to create increased high-quality housing and employment opportunities, together with new community facilities. We want to positively plan for the continued sustainable growth of the city adding to Carlisle’s offer as a place to live and will diversify the city’s overall housing offer.”

Kathryn Donnelly, Project Manager, Arup added, “This landmark project comes at a time when UK faces major challenges in building houses, St Cuthbert’s Garden Village will create significant growth for the Borderlands region by providing high quality homes and vital transport links for local people. We can’t wait to start work with Carlisle City Council and its partners to support the delivery of this truly transformational project.”