Client
National Infrastructure Commission
Collaborators
SQW
Client
National Infrastructure Commission
Collaborators
SQW
5th Studio were appointed by the National Infrastructure Commission to make recommendations on the built environment of the Oxford-Milton Keynes-Cambridge Corridor. Our involvement with the NIC, Department for Transport & Treasury has been highly regarded and promises to be influential in shaping future policy.
The Oxford-Milton Keynes-Cambridge corridor encompasses a line of towns and cities some 50 miles out from London, each with an unusually productive economy. Competing on a global stage, the knowledge-driven economy of this collection of cities is impressive, but its future economic health is threatened by a lack of suitable housing and the appropriate connective infrastructure to support ‘good growth’.
Our final report produced to inform the work of the National Infrastructure Comissions is available to download here.
The project includes mapping historic growth and urbanisation across the area
The congestion caused by commuting threatens the environment and productivity of these communities, particularly Oxford and Cambridge. Housing delivery has been delegated to the market, which left to its own devices is failing to provide adequate numbers, and is also making poor use of finite resources.
5th Studio’s study implicitly explores the potential that could emerge from making the corridor more functional, linking existing economic clusters in a way that creates more than the sum of its parts, while accommodating anticipated growth for the next 30 years.
The study has involved multiple strands of work including; analysis of the area through mapping; developing a thorough understanding of the wider regional context; and a review of best-practice examples of innovation districts around the world, and how they are changing. The report makes recommendations for a spatial framework, safeguarding and reinforcing the vitality of this arc of high productivity locations.
The Cambridge-Milton Keynes-Oxford corridor in the context of a range of other established growth corridors
The potential future rail network, after the completion of East West Rail and HS2 - core study area highlighted
On completion of the typologies study a hypothetical scenario was developed, illustrating various development types deployed across the region, with the target of accommodating an additional 1.9 million people by 2050
Diagram expressing the contrasting approaches to the deployment of settlements and their supporting infrastructure (the area of black is the same in both diagrams)
The study explores nine different settlement typologies through analysis of nine real-world case study locations
