A reserved matters application for the AtkinsRéalis Wayfinder hub Northstowe has been submitted to South Cambridgeshire District Council, proposing a four-storey town hub offering more than 4,000m² of flexible space to serve residents of what Tibbalds describes as the largest new town built in England since Milton Keynes.
The application, brought forward by the AJ100 engineering and design consultancy, centres on a building that deliberately dissolves the conventional separation between healthcare, civic life and culture. More than 1,250m² is allocated to healthcare provision, sitting alongside a library, learning facilities, community and civic spaces, collaborative workspaces, flexible event areas, a café and bookable meeting rooms.
A building guided by nature and community value
AtkinsRéalis describes the design as guided by principles of sustainability, health and wellbeing, inclusivity, connectivity, flexibility and community value, with an adaptable nature-based design approach running through the scheme. The Wayfinder name itself carries a landscape memory: it references a historic trig point that previously occupied the site and was used to help map the country. Metalwork from that trig point will be re-laid in its original coordinates, grounding the building in the geography of the place it serves.
Richard Bonner, AtkinsRéalis managing director for buildings and places, framed the project in the wider context of UK new-town ambition. ‘Northstowe is one of the most significant new-town developments under construction in the UK and a project that demonstrates how thoughtfully planned communities can support growth, opportunity and quality of life,’ he said. ‘In the town hub, we have an innovative concept that breaks down traditional boundaries between healthcare, culture and civic life, creating much greater access to facilities that enable health and wellbeing.’
Bonner continued: ‘By integrating these functions into a single destination, the building will help foster stronger community connections and support healthier, more resilient communities. This is an approach we would expect to see more of as new towns emerge across the UK.’
For practices working to BREEAM, LETI or RIBA Sustainable Outcomes frameworks, the integration of healthcare into a civic hub rather than a standalone clinic carries genuine embodied and operational carbon advantages: shared structure, shared plant, shared envelope, serving multiple programmes from a single fabric rather than several dispersed buildings.
AtkinsRéalis Wayfinder hub Northstowe in the context of a phased new town
Northstowe is planned to deliver 10,000 homes across four phases. Phase 1, featuring around 1,500 homes, was led by master developer L&Q, which was acquired by Urban&Civic in 2024. Outline planning permission for Phase 2, covering 3,500 homes, three schools, sports facilities and infrastructure improvements, was granted in January 2017, based on an Arup masterplan.
Several practices have contributed to the residential fabric of Phase 2. Shedkm and Proctor & Matthews partnered with House by Urban Splash to design more than 400 fully volumetric modular townhouses for the first residential instalment of Phase 2, winning planning approval in 2020. Boon Brown Architects designed part of Northstowe Phase 2b, including 300 homes, a commercial unit and an initial phase of the town park. Frank Shaw Associates has designed various now-complete schools in the new town, including Northstowe Secondary College and the Pathfinder Church of England Primary School. This summer, Mole Architects secured approval for a 145-home scheme that will include a Buddhism-based co-housing community.
Looking further ahead, Northstowe Phase 3a is a proposal for up to 4,000 new homes, a local centre and two new primary schools, extending the long-term trajectory of the development considerably beyond its current construction activity.
The political backdrop adds further weight to the application. Housing minister Matthew Pennycook has this month stated that prime minister Andy Burnham is committed to a new generation of new towns, and that schemes outside the formal programme should nonetheless adhere to its placemaking ideals. The AtkinsRéalis Wayfinder hub Northstowe submission arrives squarely within that policy moment, offering a working model of the integrated civic infrastructure that new-town placemaking rhetoric increasingly calls for but rarely specifies in detail.
The reserved matters application now sits with South Cambridgeshire District Council for determination.
