City of Wolverhampton Council’s wholly owned housing development company, WV Living, have started work to build 178 homes on the site of the former Northicote School, Northwood Park Road, Bushbury.

The development named ‘Hampton Park’, after former headteacher Sir Geoff Hampton, will include 29 affordable rent, and 16 shared ownership homes.

WV Living appointed GreenSquareAccord as a partner to deliver the low carbon homes, which will consist of a collection of one, two, three and four-bedroom homes, with two show homes set to open in autumn 2022.

The milestone has been marked at a ground-breaking ceremony held with City of Wolverhampton Council, GreenSquareAccord, WV Living and Sir Geoff Hampton to celebrate the first spade in the ground to dig the foundations of Hampton Park.

Councillor Bhupinder Gakhal, Cabinet Member for City Assets and Housing at City of Wolverhampton Council, said:

“I am delighted that we have reached this significant milestone at Hampton Park and see another WV Living development get underway.

“The designs that have been created will provide top quality, low carbon homes for the city and developments with strong local links, which residents can be proud of.

“WV Living continues to support the overall house building programme in the City of Wolverhampton and deliver new homes people will love.”

Sally Saunders, Managing Director at WV Living, said:

“We are delighted to be delivering sustainable homes in this part of Wolverhampton to meet much-needed demand. The homes are of exceptional quality and design and will transform the former school site into a truly desirable and attractive place to live.

“Our developments enhance and create communities, with well-designed good road and transport links to support people to live and work in the city, which will have real long-lasting benefits for the residents.

“Whether you are a first-time buyer or moving up the property ladder, there is sure to be a home to suit you.”

Pat Daly, Head of Technical at GreenSquareAccord, said:

“We are delighted to be working with WV Living to deliver this scheme of much needed affordable homes for local people.

“Our experienced team are delivering a full solution on site with the new homes being constructed by GreenSquareAccord, designed by our in house design team – Indesign, and built using timber panels manufactured by our LoCaL Homes facility.

“I’m proud to see this development has created a wealth of employment opportunities with 28 new apprenticeships planned for the project across all of the trades. This is fully supported by our local supply chain.”

The new homes will be built using high quality pre-fabricated timber panels from GreenSquareAccord’s award winning, low carbon manufacturing facility, LoCaL Homes, in Walsall.

The build will use the eco-200 product range with insulated and fully clad panels delivered to site with external finishes attached. This will ensure energy efficient properties are achieved to help reduce running costs, with minimum disruption for residents moving into the development.

The off-site construction will mean the homes can be built cleaner, quicker, and with less waste compared to other traditional builds. The new homes will have great thermal performance and low carbon making the build more environmentally sustainable.

In line with WV Living’s fire safety pledge, all homes at Hampton Park will also be fitted with fire suppression systems.

To register an interest in the homes at Hampton Park, customers are invited to complete their details on the WV Living website: www.wvliving.co.uk.

City of Wolverhampton Council declared a 'climate emergency' in July 2019. In order to support national efforts to combat climate change City of Wolverhampton Council is committed to reducing its own carbon emissions by 95 per cent by 2028 and, following public consultation, has set the target of achieving the same results for the city by 2041, in line with the region.

To achieve this, every institution, business, and person will have to make changes to the way they conduct day-to-day activities, the energy they use, the way they travel, and the things they consume.