Towcester South

Project overview 

Towcester South, also known as Towcester Grange, is a sustainable southern expansion of the historic market town of Towcester. When complete, it will comprise 3,000 new homes alongside employment land, community facilities, a local centre, two new primary schools and a relief road.

The design objective was to establish a robust framework for a sustainable urban extension that made efficient use of the site, supported legible movement and open space networks, and responded to the established character and vernacular of Towcester through the use of locally inspired materials and architectural detailing.

Pegasus’s Design team prepared the masterplan, Design and Access Statement, Design Code, landscape design, detailed layouts and architecture for selected parcels, providing a coordinated design framework to support the progression of the strategic allocation through detailed planning stages.

The Pegasus team also delivered environmental services, enabling the design, landscape and infrastructure strategies to be considered as part of an integrated planning process.

 

The challenge 

The local planning authority, now West Northamptonshire Council following local government reorganisation in 2021, has specific guidance on the proportions of homes, the structure of streets and parking arrangements.

The design therefore needed to interpret local guidance in a way that maintained architectural consistency and townscape quality while accommodating contemporary housing layouts, parking standards and day-to-day functionality.

Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS), needed to be integrated into the site layout and landscape strategy so that drainage performance, open space provision and visual character were addressed together, without unnecessary land take.

In addition, with a development of this scale, the initial plans for commercial space needed to remain responsive to changing market dynamics without undermining the quality or coherence of the wider masterplan.

 

The solution 

A series of design responses were developed to reconcile local design guidance with modern residential requirements. On deeper plots, there was a risk that conventional roof forms would result in excessive ridge heights and an overly bulky built form. Pegasus addressed this through the use of asymmetric trusses, enabling the principal elevation to maintain proportions consistent with the local vernacular while accommodating a shallower pitch to the rear.

Pegasus also negotiated through the Section 106 process to address the viability implications of higher specification materials required by the design approach, helping to maintain design quality while supporting the scheme’s commercial deliverability.

The drainage strategy was coordinated with the green infrastructure framework rather than treated as a separate engineering layer. This allowed SuDS features to be embedded within a connected network of green corridors, play areas, allotments, and natural green spaces. It linked recreational opportunities for residents with tree planting, grassland, and sustainable drainage, which provide natural habitats for native wildlife and support ecological processes.

This approach helped drainage features read as part of the natural parkland setting, reduced land take and increased the multifunctional value of open space across the development.

The team also worked with the council to build flexibility into the commercial elements of the masterplan, allowing the scheme to respond to changing market conditions while retaining the spatial logic of the local centre.

This resulted in the consolidation of commercial space, releasing additional land for residential development while maintaining an identifiable mixed-use focus within the neighbourhood structure.

The first 1,200 homes have been built at Towcester Grange, alongside one primary school and a care home. The local centre is under construction, demonstrating the phased delivery of a major sustainable urban extension with a coordinated masterplanning, design coding, landscape and environmental strategy.

 

Lucy Walden, Planning Manager at Persimmon, commented; “We have worked with Pegasus for many years and continue to do so on a number of projects within our region. Our Towcester site has been a huge success for which Pegasus worked on the Outline Permission and the detailed design code. The site has become somewhere that is used to promote what can be achieved with good design and features on promotional literature for us and even the approving authority, West Northamptonshire Council, who recently used it as a backdrop for their planning recruitment campaign.”

If you’d like to discuss how Pegasus can support your development, get in touch.