Work is under way on a project to assemble 30 factory-built homes at the Wirral Waters scheme and now Peel L&P and Urban Splash has secured £5m in bank funding. Tony McDonough reports
A joint venture between Peel L&P and Urban Splash has secured £5m in bank funding towards the delivery of 30 modular homes at Wirral Waters.
Work is already under way on the site and the first of the homes, built using what is called modern methods of construction (MMC), will be delivered to East Float this summer. However, because of ongoing building work it will not be safe for people to move in until next year.
Now Lloyds Bank has agreed to provide an initial £5m green development loan to support the delivery of the project. It is the start of what is called House by Urban Splash, a collection of 350 homes in the Northbank neighbourhood at Wirral Waters.
Richard Mawdsley, director of development for Peel L&P’s Wirral Waters: “This is another important step forward for our joint venture with House by Urban Splash and the wider Northbank neighbourhood.
“These new innovative, design-led and sustainable homes are already proving very popular. And they are just the start. With other key developments more than 1,000 new homes will be built along Northbank in the next three to four years.
“With a range of housing types for different people, families, and budgets, we will create mixed, diverse new community here at Wirral Waters.”
All the homes are timber-framed and the buyers can customise the interiors to suit their needs for things such as number of bedrooms. The first homes will be 80, 100 or 120 sq m followed by a number of 150 sq m three-storey town houses. Once built at the factory between six and nine homes can be installed on site in a single day.
Wirral Waters is a multi-billion pound development first unveiled by Peel more than a decade ago. Early developments included Wirral Met College and a large call centre facility for The Contact Company.
Now the pace of the scheme is being stepped up. Work has started on the 25,000 sq ft Hythe, a speculative office development that will offer grade A flexible office space aimed at local SMEs. Peel L&P has secured £8.5m from Merseyside Pension Fund for the project and support from the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority.
Work is also expected in site this year on two other developments – the £23m Maritime Knowledge Hub, led by Mersey Maritime, as well as Belong Village, an extra care facility comprising 38 apartments and 12 dementia care households.