The urban-fringe development at Upton, Northampton is shown to illustrate the implementation of current best practice in community planning and design. The development includes principles of sustainable development and has provided an important case study for environmental monitoring and research. A key issue for the research group was to understand how the concepts of sustainable development were understood and transposed from a stakeholder consultation process to initial plans and design code. Major players were involved in taking innovative and conceptual ideas and charged with transferring these ideas into reality. These people were interviewed and this paper presents the narrative of their perceptions and enabling factors that allow people from a diverse range of disciplines to collaborate and contribute to an overall vision. This paper evaluates these interviews and discusses the role of partnership development, collaboration, transdisciplinarity and willingness to take a leap into uncharted urban planning territory