Over the 60 years that Croudace has been building homes, we have worked across the region on numerous sites. For example, in the 1970s and 1980s we built major developments in growth towns such as Ashford and Chatham in Kent, Bracknell in Berkshire and Horsham in West Sussex.

More recently in the 1980s and 1990s we have continued to work in growth towns and have been active in Didcot in Oxfordshire, Stevenage in Hertfordshire, Harlow in Essex and Basingstoke in Hampshire to name but a few.

Didcot, Oxfordshire: 'Ladygrove'

Croudace built over 1,000 homes between 1987 and 2003 alongside a further 2,000 homes built by other developers.

The planning gain package for the entire site included two primary schools, a Neighbourhood Centre comprising a pub, shops and Medical Centre, Didcot Town Football Club stadium, a sports hall and 'Ladygrove Park'. Improved infrastructure included the northern perimeter road , a foul water pumping station and improvements to surface water drainage and water supply in the area. This has been a most successful project which provided a good quality, well designed community offering relatively affordable housing in the high value M4 corridor.

Over the sixteen years Croudace was connected with the area we forged good relationships with the planning, highway and drainage authorities and are held in high regard. On the back of this success, Croudace Strategic is promoting a site to the north of Ladygrove as a sustainable urban extension. Details of this are available on our Current pages.

North East Stevenage, Hertfordshire

Croudace has been building this urban extension to Stevenage New Town in a consortium of three other house builders since the scheme was won on appeal in 1990. The whole site will ultimately provide some 2,100 homes as well as ancillary facilities including a primary school and a children's day nursery, a Neighbourhood Centre comprising community hall, shops and further children's day nursery. The development includes substantial areas of public open space with enhancements to existing parkland, a new District Park incorporating sports pitches and a pavilion and retained woodland which includes a nature reserve. More land, known as Burleigh Park, was acquired in 2003 and a range of one to four bedroom units have already been constructed and sold. Details of the homes for sale are available on Croudace Homes website.

Over the past sixteen years Croudace has built up good relationships with both planning authorities, Stevenage Borough and North Herts District Councils, and with Hertfordshire County Council regarding highway and education matters.

We are now promoting a new site to the North of Stevenage, details of which are available under our Current Projects page.

Basingstoke, Hampshire: 'Sherfield Park'

In 1994 Croudace entered into an Option Agreement for this site. Following successful promotion of the site through the Local Plan process, we secured an allocation for some 700 dwellings in 1998. Outline planning permission was granted in 2000 and then adjacent land was acquired and successfully promoted through the Local Plan Review, taking the site's capacity to well in excess of 800 units.

The concept of the scheme embraces all the best principles that create a vibrant village life. These include attractive communal spaces, pleasant street layouts that are pedestrian friendly and encourage safe driving, with the addition of an extensive grid of cycle ways and footpaths, to encourage environmentally friendly forms of travel.

This site is our most environmentally conscious project to date where we have provided water retention facilities for each property and a series of balancing ponds. In terms of ecology, bat boxes and nesting boxes for sparrows have been erected and a 'deer corridor' is also earmarked. Another new feature is an underground recycling centre which is provided on site.

Sherfield Park is at the forefront of a new generation of housing development, complying with Government policy placing greater emphasis on quality and design whilst making the most efficient use of land. Indeed perhaps in recognition of this the site was officially opened by the then Planning Minister, Keith Hill, in March 2004. Details of the homes for sale are available on Croudace Homes website.

Harlow, Essex: 'Church Langley'

Croudace has recently finished building this new community of over 3,500 homes in Harlow in consortium with other housebuilders which started in 1991. The emphasis for this site was to create a mixed development, which provides residents with a range of community facilities within the scheme.

Within the Neighbourhood Centre at Church Langley a community hub was created which included a primary school, sports hall, health centre, nursery and chapel alongside a large superstore, a range of local shops and a public house with restaurant. Provision has been made for a number of outdoor recreational activities with the creation of a Country Park which contains a cricket pitch, a floodlit tennis court and fishing lake.

Walderslade, Chatham, Kent

During the 1980s we completed a large residential development known as Princes Park. An area of land was left undeveloped with the view to transferring it to the Local Authority as Public Open Space. This transfer never took place and therefore the land remained in our ownership.

By 2000, the site had become overgrown and neglected and we felt that it had development potential and promoted it through the Local Plan Review. During the intervening period, while the site remained undisturbed, some ecological value was created and the Local Authority sought to designate it as a Site of Nature Conservation Interest. Further, the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 identified this site as 'Open Countryside', a designation against which we successfully objected. Having taken advice from experts including English Nature and Kent Wildlife Trust we proposed a scheme which developed the land with low ecological interest and provided and funded a Management Plan for the remainder of the site, thus ensuring protection for the long term of the wildlife.

The Local Plan Inquiry Inspector's Report was published in March 2002 and recommended in favour of our proposal. Following the publication of this Report, we submitted a planning application. Medway Council rejected the Inspector's recommendation and refused the planning application. It subsequently designated the site as Open Space and a Local Nature Conservation Site in the Adopted Local Plan in May 2003. We appealed the decision and won a month later and have recently completed and sold all the houses.