This thriving residential development forms part of a wider redevelopment of a former airfield. The development received outline planning permission in 2017 for 1500 residential units, and allocated land for a secondary school, primary school and local centre, in addition to the realignment of a major road.

Jubb were appointed post planning to develop the primary infrastructure for the site wide development including a redesign of the on site drainage and SuDS network. The team have worked collaboratively with the developer, residential housebuilder and Oxfordshire County Council to deliver the site wide strategy and offsite highway works for the large development. Jubb also had to deliver the sitewide foul infrastructure prior to other infrastructure being in place. This was due to the local approving authority, Thames Water, were planning to use the site wide infrastructure to enhance their own network to assist in serving other areas. This required close coordination with them to ensure their needs were meet whilst not compromising those of the client.

Due to Jubb’s performance on the site wide strategy, we have been instructed to deliver the design for the internal road, drainage and external works for a number of phases across the site.

During the design of various elements there has been a number of challenges the designers have had to overcome.

The on-site drainage solution utilised a SuDS strategy to retain storm water within the development before controlling discharge into a local watercourse. The solution included a network of conveyance swales connecting attenuation ponds and detention basins. These provided both amenity and biodiversity benefits to the residential development. The engineering team had to adapt the drainage design due to buildability issues identified as part of an initial review of the planning design. This required the relocation of ponds and swales to ensure the design would work as efficiently as possible whilst maintaining the principles of the design approved at the outline planning stage.

Jubb have incorporated innovative design ideas into the wider drainage network to assist with keeping down construction costs and assisting with construction programme. These include the use of check dams within conveyance swales that store water during times of heavy storms, this allows for smaller sized infrastructure downstream of the swales.