Developing a future where people can work, rest and play

"SUSTAINABLE communities" is the building buzz phrase of the moment. Everyone from the Government to the Prince of Wales has championed the idea of developments that accommodate businesses, residential areas and leisure facilities on the same site.

In 2001, the Government published a green paper imposing a duty on commercial developers to provide affordable homes and help solve the planning crisis.

Rather than see themselves forced into a corner, developers have grasped the nettle with both hands and throughout the UK plans for all-purpose business parks have dropped on to the desks of local authority planners with increasing regularity.

Prince Charles has championed his own version of the mixed-use development with Pondbury village, seen by many as a twee, yet successful example.

Though they may not have royal approval, the major developments in the North-East have high-profile backers.

Entrepreneur and former Newcastle United chairman Sir John Hall is funding a business park at his Wynyard estate on Teesside.

The development will include office buildings offering between 1,000 and 400,000sq ft of space, designed to provide room for growing local businesses or established national and international concerns.

Sir John's vision of the business park is based on a US model of creating a place where people can "live, work and play".

Elsewhere in the region, developers in Darlington last month announced a plan to build hundreds of homes and businesses at a site near Bank Top railway station.

The 75-acre site, which will be called Central Park and will be the first thing visitors to the town will see when they get off the train, is due for completion by September 2006.

The biggest of the new mixed-use developments is the Newcastle Great Park (NGP), near to Newcastle.

The most striking thing about the facts and figures surrounding these proposed developments is the enormous amount of money involved.

Between them, the Darlington scheme and the NGP are expected to cost developers nearly £1bn, with the NGP predicted to cost a £800m by the time of its completion.

This level of investment denotes an equally high level of faith that the schemes will be a success.

The NGP is the most high-profile of the region's developments.

The 1,200-acre site is three miles north of Newcastle city centre on an area of land not far from Newcastle Falcons Rugby Ground.

At a launch celebration earlier this month, local dignitaries, including ex-Newcastle United manager Sir Bobby Robson and Falcons coach Rob Andrew, took to the air in helicopters to view the site, which already houses the £60m headquarters of software group Sage.

Jointly funded by developers Persimmon and Taylor Woodrow, the development is expected to take between ten and 15 years to complete.

Speaking at the launch, Persimmon chief executive John White sounded confident, despite admitting it was the biggest development of its kind the company had been involved in.

Mr White said: "There is a risk factor, but there is an element of risk in every business venture.

"However, we have tremendous confidence in siting this development in the North-East. Businesses are interested in coming to the region, as it has a great deal to offer in terms of skills and expertise."

Mr White perhaps has good reason to be confident. Though the NGP may represent Persimmon's biggest venture into mixed-use developments, its partner is an old hand at the game.

Greenwich Millennium Village is a model community in South-East London, often put forward as an example of the sustainable community by Government ministers.

Built on the site of a former gasworks and munitions factory on Greenwich Peninsula, it was developed by Taylor Woodrow and Countryside Properties.

But while government ministers speak of the virtues of the brave new sustainable world, questions are still being asked about the mixed-use sites. For instance; are these self-sustaining communities a realistic vision of the future? And if they are, will people be attracted by the idea of living and working in the same space? And who wants to live on the same street as their boss?

Peter Jordan is the regional projects director for Persimmon, one half of the team in charge of the NGP project.

He said: "Although the idea is obviously to try and encourage people to live and work in the same environment, the reality will be that some people who choose to live on the site will work elsewhere and some of those working in the business park will not be interested in living here as well.

"The opportunity to live and work together is there, but not everyone will take advantage of that.

"It's quite unlikely that bosses would be living on the site, so that probably eliminates that worry."

A more serious concern than exchanging garden-fence pleasantries with the MD is the danger that these new developments will be functional, but devoid of character.

During the 1960s, planners set out with a similar zeal to build the so-called new towns - places such as Milton Keynes - which in many cases have since become a byword for soulless and uninspiring town planning.

Vinay Bedi, a director at the Newcastle office of investment managers Wise Speke, said developers were certainly taking a gamble.

Mr Bedi said: "The great test will be in the planning. Things always look fantastic on an artist's impression, but can they transfer that vision into a reality?

"The skill for the planners is being able to make it look like a desirable area to live where there happen to be offices, rather than like a business park with residential areas stuck on."

Mr Jordan, who was involved with the Cramlington new town project, in Northumberland, said developers today had learned from the mistakes of the sixties planners.

"All of the new towns were developed at a time when the most important concern was infrastructure. The driving force today is trying first of all to make a place, an environment, where people want to live and play.

"With the NGP, for example, we have already committed £10.5m to a public transport system for the site."

The enormous financial gamble of the new schemes could be handsomely rewarded if they are the success that developers hope they will be.

It is possible they could become the blueprint for future development.

Mr Bedi said: "I think it would be fair to say that there are a lot of people watching very carefully to see how this develops."

The success or otherwise of these developments will not be known for many years, but while some people may see them as a vision of the future, for Mr Jordan, their inspiration is drawn much more from the past.

He said: "The concept has come from historical precedent. Towns and cities founded hundreds of years ago have survived because of commerce and trade. If there are no jobs, a community is doomed to failure."