View looking at a typical square within the town area

John Simpson and Partners worked with a consortium of housebuilders to develop a detailed masterplan for this major urban extension to the north of the City of Newcastle. The practice developed a unique concept for the development, designed to ensure that it maintained a cohesive and distinctive identity of its own. The scheme received support from John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Raynsford as Housing Minister, and the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE).

It involved 2500 new homes, a major new mixed use centre, a new university campus, two new schools and new community facilities, all designed around major new public transport infrastructure that links the development with the surrounding area and Newcastle town centre.

The project was designed as a mixed use sustainable development with a town centre of relatively high density around which a group of satellite neighbourhoods are arranged each with their own facilities.

It was the first PPG3 compliant scheme to be awarded planning consent.