LEISURE & COMMUNITY
Northstowe is already thriving with community activities and events creating a real sense of belonging and identity. Residents are at the forefront of championing Northstowe, having already formed new community groups and worked with existing groups to ensure they feed into the creation of their new town. Over the past few years, the community have created fantastic opportunities for the community to connect including a winter festival, regular volunteer café, running festivals, regular food vans, sports and wellbeing activities and a day to celebrate Northstowe’s fifth anniversary.
As the town grows, more facilities such as a gym, lakes, allotments, sports pavilion, community centre including a medical centre will be available.
There are lots of useful sources of information on what’s going on in Northstowe and surrounding areas- many of which are managed by the community, for the community;
Facebook: Northstowe Community
Facebook: I♥Northstowe
LIFE IN BALANCE
Nature will never be far away for the residents of Northstowe and this will help to promote health and wellbeing
LIFE IN BALANCE
As well as being a great place for people to call home, Northstowe provides for a mixed and balanced community with an accent on health and wellbeing. The new town has been planned to provide great spaces for formal and informal recreation in both sport and play.
Northstowe was designed as one of ten NHS England ‘Healthy New Towns’
Northstowe Healthy Living and Youth & Play Strategy
The Northstowe Phase 2 Healthy Living and Youth & Play Strategy (NHLYP) illustrates how Northstowe Phase 2 will be designed to encourage active lifestyles, independence and wellbeing, and be provided with excellent facilities for people to play, socialise, play sport, keep fit and have fun.
You can download the full NHLYP Strategy here
SUSTAINABILITY
Northstowe has the concept of sustainability at its heart. Both its open spaces and buildings are conceived to enhance biodiversity, creating green corridors all around that link to the wider Cambridgeshire area.
It will support a low carbon community lifestyle with buildings that use less energy, provide carbon savings and are economic to run. It will also have fibre optic connectivity, great public transport, cycle lanes, walkways and electric vehicle charging points.
Northstowe is dedicated to protecting and enhancing biodiversity by creating green corridors that link to the wider landscape and which provide a place for people to enjoy and relax. Northstowe Phase 3 is to achieve 15% biodiversity net gain and we’re creating new habitat for farmland birds off-site at Smithy Fen.
In fact, it is the landscape and green infrastructure of the natural land in and around Northstowe that has helped inform the layout of the town, integrating both green spaces and waterways into the mix for people to enjoy and relax in.
Northstowe will be protected by environmental features built in, such as Sustainable Drainage System (SuDS) used to manage surface water through a series of ponds, open swales, alongside roads and within green spaces, protecting the town from major flood events – well above the normal development standard. These ponds and swales will also feature as part of the open space provision at Northstowe that will provide fantastic leisure routes and trails for all to enjoy.
WALKS AND LEISURE
Northstowe has been designed with greenways connection across the town. These incorporate paths and cycleways to encourage walking and cycling.
The Lake at Northstowe is an expansive open parkland along the eastern site boundary providing a valuable green corridor and landscaped transition between the new town and the surrounding lowland farmland. The Lake will provide essential water attenuation and flood alleviation as well as providing ecological, recreation, amenity and circulation functions.
Three large ponds dominate the park with fluctuating water tables and permanent water expected to be present throughout the year. Graded pond edges are shaped to create opportunities for access and recreation as well as providing a rich ecological environment of wetland, riverside and aquatic vegetation.
