| Great Notley | |
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Great Notley
Great Notley shown within Essex |
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| Population | 5,500 |
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| OS grid reference | TL740207 |
| Parish | Great Notley |
| District | Braintree |
| Shire county | Essex |
| Region | East |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | BRAINTREE |
| Postcode district | CM7, CM77 |
| Dialling code | 01376 |
| Police | Essex |
| Fire | Essex |
| Ambulance | East of England |
| EU Parliament | East of England |
| UK Parliament | Braintree |
| List of places: UK • England • Essex | |
Great Notley, or formerly Great Notley Garden Village is a suburban development, mostly by Countryside Properties on the fringe of Braintree, Essex in England with an approximate population of 5,500. It became an independent civil parish on 1 April 2000 as a result of The Great Notley Parish Council Order 2000.
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Excavations in Great Notley revealed the remains of Iron Age and Roman settlements with a series of enclosures overlaid with a Roman development on the site of the Skyline Business Park, where it is thought that there was a series of occupations on the site from the late Iron Age onwards, which included brewing, farming and the production of textiles.[1]
Great Notley was designed a self-sustainable garden village composed of three distinct hamlets linked via a spine road[2]:
It is cited as an example of Countryside Properties's design philosophy of 'instant maturity' and 'instant community'.[3]
Also within the overall 188 ha (460 acres) site is a business park, 'Skyline120', and a 40 ha (100 acres) country park.
Due to the size of Great Notley, there is little in the way of indoor entertainment facilities. Outdoor entertainment includes various playgrounds and the aforementioned country park (known as the 'Discovery Centre'), which has recently undergone construction work to include an assault course, café and water features.
There are various small businesses operating in Great Notley, including a veterinary centre, public house, estate agents and a tanning salon. There is also a Tesco supermarket located in the garden village, making it the third Tesco to be built within the Braintree district.
There are two schools in Great Notley; White Court Primary School and Notley Green Primary School, which was opened in 1999. The main secondary school for the area is Notley High School, which is located in the neighbouring village of Black Notley.
As a development it has won numerous awards for the sensitivity of the architecture, including the Braintree Environmental Heritage Award,[4] Environmental Initiative Award for 'The Discovery Centre',[4] Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust Award,[4] Best Kept Village in Essex as part of the 1998 National Village of the Year awards,[4] and two gold What House? awards.[4] It is now listed as a 'Best Practice' example by SEEDA for incorporating natural habitats in modern housing development.[5]
Despite such accolades, it has had its detractors,[3] most notably Alain de Botton who found the replication of 17th, 18th and 19th century styles of housing to be unadventurous, featuring the village extensively in the television series The Perfect Home.[6] De Botton's criticism of the mock historical styles was not accepted by Countryside Properties' Chris Cook who deadened De Botton's 'abstruse aesthetic objections'.[7]