Vision for Heronby in the news
News about Escrick Park Estate’s vision for an Estate-led masterplanned new community for North Yorkshire has been read far and wide.
The Estate has started the process of drawing up plans for Heronby, which would be a mixed-use, sustainable community with up to 4,000 new homes, and facilities such as schools, shops, workplaces, open spaces and more.
Keen to include the local community in shaping and refining the proposals, the Estate has set up a website where people can see the initial plans and offer their opinions.
Within the first two weeks of the website being launched, it had been viewed by almost 5,000 people.
A media release on the proposals was widely distributed and picked up by more than a dozen local, regional and national media outlets, and it has been estimated that more than 100,000 people have so far had the opportunity to learn more and share their views.
The Heronby team presented the proposals to three local parish councils: Escrick, Stillingfleet and Riccall, and has made a series of videos which reflect those presentations and respond to some of the questions raised. The videos can be seen here: https://www.heronby.co.uk/news-1/the-vision-for-heronby-a-video-presentation
It is early days in the process and the Estate will now be making a submission to Selby District Council’s latest Local Plan consultation.
This will emphasise that:
The Estate aims to create an exemplary new community informed by garden village principles which will set a new benchmark for settlement planning in the region.
Heronby will be a community which belongs to the local areas, using traditional street patterns, architectural styles and materials in a new settlement designed to meet contemporary needs including housing supply, affordable housing, community-building, and sustainable transport.
Heronby will contain numerous community facilities including schools, a GP surgery, a dentist surgery, sports and leisure facilities, and a “village hall”.
An interconnected network of pedestrian, cycle and vehicular routes is woven through the masterplan, both within the community and extending beyond to surrounding settlements.
The Estate will work to ensure that its illustrative masterplan considers and respects the site’s ecology, including the existing woodland on the site.
Media round-up
Between March 2 and March 5 alone there were 15 articles on the proposals. Software analysing the online and print coverage has estimated that 103,000 people have now read about the proposals.
In addition, online versions of the articles were shared more than 400 times on social media.
The York Press said: “First look at plans for new village between York and Selby,” while the Selby Times said: “Landowners set out vision for new town.”
The Business Desk headlined its online story: “Plans unveiled for a new 4,000 home community,” and York Mix ran an article headlined “Revealed: plan for a 4,000-home village, to be built near York.”