Following the granting of Outline Planning Permission in January 2025, Village 1 emerges as both the gateway to the wider community and the connection point to the neighbouring town of Harlow. The site carries a rich landscape and heritage character – from ancient scheduled monuments to historic tree-lined avenues – with proposals designing sensitively to the site’s context.

Alongside new homes, Village 1 will deliver a nursery, primary school, a secondary school and a mixed-use village centre. The schools are conceived as central community pillars, designed to anchor neighbourhood life from the outset and serve the wider community as Gilston Park grows. The village centre draws together a diverse mix of uses including local shops, cafés, health centre, mobility hub and recreational spaces, creating a community environment for active and connected everyday life.

Landscape runs as a defining thread through the masterplan. Green spaces throughout are designed to be multifunctional – supporting recreation, social gathering and ecological connectivity – while embedding the new community into the surrounding countryside. Key heritage assets including Lime Avenue, the Scheduled Monument and the Park Pale are woven into proposals, grounding the neighbourhood in the distinctive character and history of the landscape. Proposals also target a 60% modal shift away from the private car through a Sustainable Transport Corridor that prioritises walking, cycling and public transport.

The Design Code sets standards for built form, landscape and infrastructure – ensuring that as future phases come forward across all seven villages, quality and design are maintained throughout. JTP developed the framework through extensive collaboration with community representation, East Hertfordshire District Council, Hertfordshire County Council and a wide range of technical stakeholders – a collaborative process that directly shaped the masterplan and Design Code’s aspirations.

Graeme Phillips, Partner at JTP, commented: “Village 1 is both a neighbourhood in its own right and the foundation for the wider new garden town. JTP’s masterplan and Design Code sets the tone for the next villages that will follow, ensuring the quality, identity and principles established here are maintained at every stage of delivery. From the outset, our approach was to listen carefully, understand what makes this landscape and its heritage so distinctive, and use that understanding to build a framework capable of guiding design quality over the long term. The result is a masterplan that reflects the ambitions of the community, PfP, Barratt Redrow and the local authority, and one we believe will serve as a meaningful contribution to how the future villages are shaped and built.”

Sammie Steele, Managing Director of Greater London Developments at PfP on behalf of the PfP Barratt Redrow joint venture commented: “Village 1 is more than a starting point – it’s the gateway to 8,500 new homes and the six transformative villages PfP and Barratt Redrow will deliver. Through extensive collaboration with East Hertfordshire District Council and Hertfordshire County Council, the Masterplan for Village 1 sets the tone for the future of this development and sets a clear vision on how we intend to blend urban and country living. It will create a place where people can put down roots for themselves and their families. This is the culmination of a process that began in early 2021 and we are thrilled to be progressing the first phase of development and demonstrating how town and countryside can be effortlessly connected.”