A Wiltshire housing association toured a major housing development in Warminster to see how their high-quality properties are constructed.
The board of Selwood Housing were shown Persimmon Homes Wessex’s Jubilee Gardens site, seeing the completed properties the five-star developer had transferred to them last year and the ones currently being built.
43 homes at Jubilee Gardens have been designated for Selwood Housing, which will help alleviate housing need in the area and the number of people waiting on the local authority’s housing waiting list.
The first nine of these were handed over last autumn. The 43 quality homes for local people will consist of 26 affordable rent properties and 17 for shared ownership. They will include a mix of one to two-bed apartments and two to four-bed homes.
The tour was given by Wessex’s region construction director Ben Hale, contracts manager Carlo Yates, and site manager Chris Francis. Chris recently reached the final three in Persimmon’s national health and safety excellence awards, the results of which will be announced later this month.
As part of the development, Persimmon will invest millions of pounds in the local vicinity as the housebuilder delivers a sustainable community for local people.
This will include land for a new primary school, significant areas of open space including a riverside park, equipped children’s play areas, two areas of sports pitches and associated changing rooms.
A local centre, allotments, public art, employment land, improvements to public footpaths, new pedestrian and cycle routes, biodiversity enhancements and a dedicated ecology area will also be delivered at Jubilee Gardens.
Significant financial contributions will also be made towards education provision, bus services connecting the scheme with town centre, signal upgrades to improve vehicle movements in the town centre, health care in Warminster, and enhancements to local public rights of way.
A sizeable financial contribution will also be made by the housebuilder to provide funding for local infrastructure priorities – the Victoria Road roundabout is now complete and work is commencing this month on the access from Bath Road.
It follows Selwood Housing’s recent visit to Persimmon’s Backbridge Farm development at Malmesbury in March after the latest tranche of properties were transferred there.
Commenting, Persimmon Homes Regional Managing Director Julian Roper said:
“We’re very proud of the work we’ve accomplished so far at Jubilee Gardens and we’re delighted that Selwood Housing chose to see the properties we built here as a strong example of the high-quality homes we have transferred to them.
“Persimmon is a business that is committed to leaving a positive and lasting legacy in the areas in which we build – that doesn’t just mean more houses on the open market, but the delivery of properties for housing associations to alleviate pressure on local housing waiting lists.
“We have a good relationship with Selwood Housing, evident in our agreements across multiple sites to handover high-quality homes to them, and it a great vote of confidence in our standards that they came to Jubilee Gardens for examples of best practice.”
Paul Walsh, Group Development Director for Selwood Housing, added:
“I’d like to thank Ben Hale and the Jubilee Gardens site team for their time showing us around the site where we saw completed homes and homes under construction.
“It was interesting to see the homes being built to the new building regulation standards, the new features, and ever-better fabric that will help them achieve these new challenging standards.
“Jubilee Gardens is an excellent development, and we are delighted to be Persimmon Homes partner on the first phase for 43 homes a mix of affordable rent and shared ownership – we have already taken 27 homes with 16 more to follow this year.
“We are also working on plans with Persimmon for the second phase as Jubilee Gardens is another development where we have been the affordable homes partner with Persimmon delivering hundreds of much needed local affordable homes.
“I would also like to wish Chris the site manager good luck with the site awards he and the team are up for.”