Background
This is a masterplan for a major new settlement and urban extension to Bray, which has been designated as a Metropolitan Consolidation Town in the Regional Planning Guidelines. The masterplan is being prepared in consultation with Wicklow County Council and is a requirement of its Local
Area Plan (LAP) for Bray Environs.

The Fassaroe development area covers approximately 156 hectares (385 acres) to the west of the existing built-up area of Bray and is targeted to accommodate up to 7,000 new residents and enterprise and employment opportunities for approximately 16,000 people. A light rail connection with park and ride is also planned to serve the area.

Above: strategic overview of public transport routes and hubs

The project presented several complex challenges: a visually and environmentally sensitive site with difficult terrain; pre-existing zoning and ‘highways’ proposals; a very ambitious target residential and employment population; a range of powerful and sometimes divergent stakeholder interests; and a client with little prior experience of the masterplanning process.

Context
The lands are bounded by the M11 to the east, Ballyman Glen to the north, the Cookstown River to the south and by field boundaries to the west, forming a green-belt between Fassaroe and Enniskerry village. The existing edge of the built up area of Bray environs is located immediately to the east of the M11. The topography of the lands offers sweeping views of the Wicklow mountains and Dublin Bay, which act as ‘borrowed landscape’.

Vision
A workshop was held with key stakeholders, landowners and the consultant team to agree a vision and goals for the development of the area:

“to create a new urban and landscape extension to Bray of unique and distinctive quality and sense of place; a self-sustaining and diverse, multigenerational community in harmony with its environment; and a highly accessible destination that will offer lifelong choices for living, working and recreation.”

Above: illustrative view of new square looking towards the Great Sugar Loaf

Outline
The plan proposes a new orbital route in the form of an avenue that will connect a place of arrival with a new civic space in the heart of the area with onward connections to two new neighbourhood hubs. The avenue will serve as the key structuring element with pedestrian and cycle priority, on-street parking and light rail. A secondary route structure is provided to reinforce permeability and connectivity more locally. Tertiary and lower level connections will provide for local access with more intimate and safe ‘homezone’ typologies. A particular focus of the plan is how to create a genuinely diverse mix of uses and buildings within a sustainable urban form.

If we’re proud of this project it’s because we were able to secure stakeholder support for a workable urban structure that meets these challenges, but which also has the essential elements of urban form that are pre-requisite to developing a genuine sense of place and character that is urban, not suburban, focussed on streets and spaces for people, not cars. Much is yet to be done but it is crucial that the first steps taken are in the right direction...

Jonathan Tarbatt
Director, Loci

Above: illustrative view of proposed pedestrian link between lower square (employment and enterprise centre) and town centre