The site consists of a substantial area of disused land, adjacent to Bishop’s Stortford mainline railway station. Originally a Network Rail goods yard and sidings, these have been largely decommissioned, such that the current car-parking and derelict land constitutes a poor use of a prominent and important town centre site. The riverside location is largely underwhelming, under- occupied and under-utilised but has great potential. AWW is developing a sustainable strategic vision for this important site, providing public amenity and much needed facilities, with enhanced opportunities for commercial investment and the provision of a significant volume of housing. The project involves widespread consultation in order to accommodate competing interests within the local community and with the railway, its operating company and users. The project aims to reconfigure the site to form a positive point of arrival and thereby revive a site which has hitherto acted as a blight on this lovely medieval town, currently adapting to its enlarged population and its increased role in the rapid economic growth of the region. “We identified early on that to efficiently and accurately develop housing for a site of this scale, we needed to develop a system that could be rolled out throughout the whole site. As a result, we have developed a grid system, based on alternating 6 and 9m bays that can fit a variety of housing typologies. “Because of the isolated nature of the bays and the simple grid structure, the unit mix, unit size and exterior elevation treatment can all be responsive to an evolving brief, and the site specific constraints along different areas of the large site.” Nicholas Mulholland, Director, AWW