TADPOLE Garden Village has scooped a prestigious award for Best Housing Scheme at the Planning Awards 2018 in London.

The development, which when completed will add 1,855 homes to North Swindon, was named Best Housing Scheme of 500 homes or more at the awards earlier this month.

Judges praised the development for its integration of landscape and public areas, wide range of community facilities and a “commendable proportion of affordable housing”.

Thirty per cent of the homes will be classes as affordable, the result of a close partnership between Swindon Council and developers Crest Nicholson.

Councillor Gary Sumner, Swindon Borough Council’s Cabinet Member for Strategic Planning, said: “The development sets an extremely high standard, which we would like to see continued elsewhere. The success is not just in creating a development, but a community in which it will be a pleasure to live.

“Tadpole Garden Village promises to be a hugely successful development and it just goes to show what can be achieved when developers and local authorities collaborate for the good of the wider community.”

The council’s own policy is to agree a minimum of 30 per cent affordable housing for new large developments. The Tadpole development contrasts with the picture for the town as a whole. Figures from the Local Government Finance Settlement revealed fewer than one in ten homes built in Swindon over the last three years were affordable.