Sustainable Transport Options
Healthy New Towns Approach
Middle Farm proposes to deliver a new self-sustaining community which puts health and well-being at the heart of the community.
In September 2015, NHS England and Public Health England launched a new initiative – The Healthy New Towns Programme, which seeks to promote health and well-being, prevent illness and keep people independent. The key principles of this programme are proposed to be incorporated into the development of Middle Farm to promote and enhance the health and well-being of existing and future residents of this locality.
Middle Farm proposes to create compact neighbourhoods, maximise the opportunities to engage with active travel, enable healthy play and leisure and foster health in homes and buildings.
These principles will be upheld through the provision of a high-quality network of direct and safe walking, wheeling, and cycle routes to and from the hospital and the new Northumberland Line station, as well as from Cramlington to Seaton Delaval and Seghill and vice versa. These will offer direct, safe and legible routes between key destinations on the site, which then connect with the existing facilities within the wider area.
Middle Farm is located adjacent to the hospital and therefore provides a great opportunity to support the corporate objectives of local healthcare services. Middle Farm can provide high-quality housing, including key worker homes, for staff to live close to their place of work and offer a new local centre, leisure, primary school, and health facilities to benefit existing and future residents, employees, patients, and visitors.
The proposal will also directly support the corporate objectives of local healthcare services in addressing staff retention at the hospital site through the provision of employment, leisure, primary school and health facilities alongside residential homes, including the provision of key worker housing for NHS staff, within a self-sustaining community, focused upon Healthy New Towns objectives.
Active Travel
The proposal offers a significant opportunity for those travelling to the hospital to do so easily by public transport from a wide range of destinations. It is proposed to provide opportunities for new and diverted bus services to connect new and existing residents to key employment destinations, through segregated ‘bus only’ routes through the site.
The site design proposes to encourage active travel throughout the site and the local area, including to and from the hospital for staff, and to and from the proposed Employment Zone for future residents who can live and work at this site. It is proposed to give walking, wheeling and cycling priority over all other modes of transport, at all times.
New signalised road crossings, segregated travel corridors and mobility hubs are proposed throughout the development. The mobility hub buildings could offer a variety of facilities and services including safe and secure cycle parking and hire facilities, cafés and meeting places, delivery lockers and destination signposting, to support active travel choices.
‘Green corridors’ are proposed as the key transport routes through the site, offering high-quality landscaped areas connecting residential areas with local centre uses, areas of play, open space, and transport nodes, ensuring people will be more likely to walk or travel actively to and from their destinations.
