Hartley Gardens

Homes England is preparing an outline planning application for Hartley Gardens. We would like to hear from you ahead of submitting the application later this year.

Come along on Thursday 26th February to either of the two in-person drop-in sessions. It will be a chance for you to learn more about how plans for the Homes England’s Hartley Gardens application site have progressed, have a conversation with the project team and give your feedback. You can also see the proposals on this website and answer the feedback survey online, from 26th February.

Come and talk to the project team

Our public drop-in sessions will be on 26th February:

Albert Edward Hall Community Centre
Legerton Drive, Clacton-on-Sea CO16 8BW
12noon – 3pm

Imperial House Community Hub
20-22 Rosemary Road, Clacton-on-Sea CO15 1NZ
4.30pm – 7.30pm

What is Hartley Gardens?

Hartley Gardens is an allocated site in Tendring District Council’s Local Plan for a new urban extension of approximately 1700 new homes with supporting facilities and amenities. The Council have produced a Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) to guide development of the site which they consulted the community on in autumn 2025. The SPD has now been adopted.

Homes England is preparing an Outline Planning Application for the majority of the Hartley Gardens allocated site in accordance with Tendring District Council’s (TDC) adopted policies.

Who are Homes England?

Homes England is the Government’s Housing and Regeneration Agency. We’re here to drive the creation of more quality homes and thriving places so that everyone has a place to live and grow.

We believe affordable, quality homes in well-designed places are key to improving people’s lives.

We do not build homes ourselves but remain involved in our developments until they are complete to ensure high standards are met by our selected development partners.

Planning policy context

TDC’s Local Plan Section 2 allocates land at Hartley Gardens for the provision of approximately 1,700 homes, employment and supporting community facilities and infrastructure within site allocation Policy SAMU2 (Hartley Gardens).

This Policy requires development to be delivered through a comprehensive and co-ordinated approach. To achieve this, the Council recommended preparation of a Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) or comprehensive masterplan.

The SPD builds on, and provides more detail to the site allocation policy for Hartley Gardens, and includes a Vision, Core Objectives, Spatial Framework and a series of guiding principles that have helped us develop our proposals and will be used to help the Council to determine future planning applications for Hartley Gardens.

What has already happened?

Homes England first engaged with the local community in summer 2023 (you can read a summary of feedback received here).

Following this initial community engagement, TDC worked collaboratively to develop a SPD for Hartley Gardens. Homes England shared with TDC the key outcomes from the initial consultation to ensure your views could be taken into account.

TDC’s SPD is accompanied by a site-specific Hartley Gardens Infrastructure Delivery Plan (HGIDP).

Spatial Framework from the Hartley Gardens SPD (click the image to enlarge).

An Outline Planning Application sets out the principles of a development, including the general arrangement of open space and development, key streets and connections. The detailed layout of houses, streets and landscape will be submitted after the Outline Planning Application and are called ‘Reserved Matters’. The Outline Planning Application will need to demonstrate compliance with planning policy of the Development Plan and the key principles set out within the SPD and Spatial Framework.

Homes England will be preparing an outline planning application for Hartley Gardens which covers much of the site allocation area and there will be an opportunity for the wider community to provide feedback on this application before it is submitted to TDC.

We are currently in Stage 2 Engagement - Homes England’s Outline Planning Application

Stage 1: Fact finding – learning about the site and community aspirations

2023

We have undertaken surveys and site investigations, and tested options for local facilities, access routes, transport and community infrastructure. We undertook an initial stage of engagement (summer 2023) to understand opinions and feedback on issues, opportunities and priorities for Clacton-on-Sea and Hartley Gardens. This led to establishing a series of community priorities, which helped inform a Vision and Core Objectives for Tendring District Council’s SPD for Hartley Gardens.

Adoption of the TDC's Hartley Gardens SPD

Autumn/Winter 2025

TDC consulted on the draft SPD from 6 October to 17 November 2025. They reviewed all comments received and a final version of the SPD was prepared and adopted by the Council on 19 December 2025. The SPD and supporting IDP are the basis against which Homes England is preparing the Outline Planning Application.

Stage 2 Engagement - Homes England’s Outline Planning Application

Winter/Spring 2026

The OPA will use the policies, guidelines and principles set out in the Local Plan and SPD. The OPA will provide greater certainty around key components, such as the proposed location of key land uses, the alignment of key streets, access points and the extent and location of open spaces.

You will be able to provide comments at this stage through the community engagement on the emerging outline planning application before the application is submitted to TDC.

Stage 3 Submission of Outline Planning Application

Summer 2026

Following the community engagement event, feedback will be considered before the OPA is finalised and submitted by Homes England to TDC. There will be a statutory consultation process run by TDC which will provide further opportunity for you to make comments on the proposals.

While still not fully detailed, the outline planning stage will provide a clear proposal and this would be followed by Reserved Matters applications, where the detailed design of the buildings, streets and landscaping will be submitted to the Council for approval.