Project:

VeloCity

The Cambridge to Oxford Connection: Ideas Competition by the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC)

VeloCity is a strategic approach to growth and placemaking, centred on a re-imagining of the village for the 21st century.

Hoggeston Church View
Illustrative concept plan
Client:
National Infrastructure Commission, UK
Team:
Tibbalds Planning and Urban Design, Marko&Placemakers, Featherstone Young, Mikhail Riches, Expedition Engineering, Khaa
Location:
Oxford to Cambridge
Status:
Completed
Expertise
Policy and Strategy Urban Design

“The jury was drawn to VeloCity’s human scale approach to sensitively and incrementally accommodating new homes, alongside the team’s commitment to ensuring new settlements would be communities from the get-go. Creating effective new settlements can be challenging: the team’s flair and imagination in addressing this shows how good design can translate into liveable communities.”

Bridget Rosewell, Commissioner and competition jury Chair,
National Infrastructure Commission

VeloCity is a strategic vision that solves some of the most critical issues facing the countryside today, delivered by a team of industry experts.

VeloCity is the winning proposal for National Infrastructure Commission’s ideas competition, which sought inspirational visions for the future of development within the arc encompassing Cambridge, Milton Keynes, Northampton and Oxford, one of the UK’s fastest-growing and most productive regions.

VeloCity was devised by an expert team of placemakers, informing the NIC’s report Partnering for Prosperity: A new deal for the Cambridge-Milton Keynes-Oxford Arc, published in November 2017.

In 2017 we, in collaboration with Featherstone Young, Expedition Engineering, Mikhail Riches, Marko Placemakers and Khaa, won an international ideas competition initiated by the NIC to come up with ideas to accommodate significant new growth in response to the implementation of a new east-west rail corridor.

The Cambridge to Oxford Connection: Ideas Competition submission board 1 The Cambridge to Oxford Connection: Ideas Competition board 2
The Cambridge to Oxford Connection: Ideas Competition board 3 The Cambridge to Oxford Connection: Ideas Competition board 4

The competition sought inspirational visions for the future of development within the area encompassing Cambridge, Milton Keynes, Northampton and Oxford, one of the UK’s fastest growing and most productive regions.

The vision of VeloCity is a strategic approach to growth and placemaking in the rural context. Our entry proposed a polycentric cluster of existing and new ‘villages for the 21st century’ located within a seven-mile radius of new train stations. It stood out to the jury for its low- impact blueprint for delivering much-needed new homes while maintaining a person-centred scale and retaining the existing character of the countryside and the village vernacular.

The proposal took an holistic approach to movement and sustainable transport- putting the bicycle and public transport first, to the diversification and use of the landscape for food production, farming, leisure and recreation and climate management, delivery and stewardship and the involvement of existing and the creation of new communities.

Since winning the competition we have spoken at numerous conferences, participated in seminars and written several articles about how we should be approaching the planning and delivery of housing growth.

Hoggeston Church View
Hoggeston approach collage

Awards

  • International Making Cities Liveable council - IMCL 2018 Honor Award
  • National Infrastructure Commission Oxford to Cambridge Connection 2017

Core Team

Below are some of the key people that worked on this project.

  • Portrait of Jennifer Ross
    Jennifer Ross
    Consultant

Start the conversation...

Learn more about VeloCity and other projects by contacting one of our team

Call us on 0207 089 2121 or email mail@tibbalds.co.uk