Watton Village

Status: In planning process at pre-app

Client: Smart Community Projects CiC

Location: Bridport, Dorset, UK.

Visualisations: Northgraf

The Watton Village project is the response from a group of activists to the growing and, some say, shameful lack of affordable housing in the relatively affluent town of Bridport, Dorset.

It has grown from a notion into a fully developed scheme that combines a special financial model, land provision from a local landowner, very high sustainable credentials, on site energy generation and a huge amount of human energy and effort from the development team.

The ratio of affordable to open market housing at 80% - 20% is reversed from the standard model in an attempt to substantially reduce the waiting list of key workers and families currently living in substandard private rented accommodation.

The design features full rooftop cover of PV cells, passive house construction standards, the planting of thousands of trees and eco-friendly landscaping.

The planning process is long and tortuous but at the time of writing the scheme edges a little closer towards its goal.