Story Camelot revitalisation: brownfield design and SUDS notes for engineers
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on The Construction Index
30 Second Briefing
Story Homes has secured outline planning permission on appeal for up to 350 homes on the long-derelict Camelot Theme Park brownfield site at Charnock Richard, Chorley, with 50% of units designated as affordable housing for local residents. The scheme includes a community hub for co-working and local groups, a targeted 10% biodiversity net gain achieved partly by de-culverting a section of Syd Brook, and on-site habitat enhancement. Funding commitments comprise about £3m in Community Infrastructure Levy and £1.85m in Section 106 for playing pitches, public rights of way, public transport and green space maintenance, with construction expected to support roughly 240 jobs.
Technical Brief
- Appeal decision by the Planning Inspectorate overturns earlier refusal, unlocking redevelopment of the derelict grey-belt site.
- Brownfield reuse of the former Camelot Theme Park avoids greenfield take and associated new-service corridors.
- Masterplan is framed as a “thriving new community”, implying mixed-use layout and internal movement network design.
- Community hub is specified as flexible space, allowing adaptation for co-working, meetings and local group activities.
- On-site biodiversity net gain is tied to habitat enhancement, requiring long-term ecological management and monitoring regimes.
- De-culverting Syd Brook reinstates open-channel hydraulics, improving conveyance, habitat complexity and inspection access.
- Section 106 funding earmarked for public rights of way upgrades will influence off-site path surfacing and drainage details.
- Construction supply chain is expected to support around 240 jobs, favouring staged earthworks and utilities mobilisation.
- Scheme illustrates how grey-belt leisure sites can be re-purposed into housing-led communities with integrated green infrastructure.
Our Take
Story Homes already features in other large residential schemes in our database, such as the 330-home Hazelhurst Farm project with Taylor Wimpey, signalling that the Camelot site is part of a wider, multi-site pipeline rather than a one-off development.
A 50% affordable housing component on the Camelot site is at the upper end of what we see across recent UK Infrastructure coverage, which is likely to strengthen the scheme’s resilience against future policy shifts or local political pushback.
The combination of on-site biodiversity net gain and multi-million-pound CIL and Section 106 contributions aligns this Chorley scheme with the more demanding sustainability and planning obligations seen in other Planning Inspectorate-backed projects, such as the Grove House retrofit in Hammersmith.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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