This is a rural site in Goudhurst, Kent, a former equestrian centre that had been granted a change of use to holiday accommodation. The planning permission came with a condition requiring a detailed landscaping and planting scheme to be approved before the new use could come forward.
Working alongside a planning consultancy, I was engaged to design that scheme and to see it through to the discharge of the condition. The site sits in open Kent countryside, so the planting had to settle the new use comfortably into its rural surroundings, support local wildlife and read as part of the landscape rather than an addition to it.
I prepared a detailed site-wide landscaping and planting plan. At its centre is a communal garden with focal planting, set out with pollinator-friendly and largely native species chosen to provide food and habitat for beneficial insects and to give interest across the seasons. Around it I laid out parking for each holiday let, new chestnut post and rail fencing and planting along the boundaries to soften the edges of the site.
The scheme was approved and the planning condition discharged, allowing the holiday accommodation to come forward with a landscape setting designed to mature well over time.
The design
Text description of this drawing
The finished building
