Keepmoat consultation event kicks off £11m scheme

Stonebridge City Farm was the venue for a successful 5 hour public consultation exercise on Thursday when representatives from Developer Keepmoat Homes Ltd exhibited their pristine £11m plans for the Stonebridge Park Estate.

Charlotte Wood, Trainee Graphic Design/Bid Co-coordinator at Keepmoat Homes set up the presentation.

Shown in the photo left to right are Zahid Khan of BMK Architecture, Charlotte Wood (Keepmoat Homes), and Peter Shambrook Regional Development Manager of Keepmoat Homes Ltd.

Keepmoat Homes submitted a planning application on 24th December to build 110 new houses in the Jersey Gardens & Flewitt Gardens area of the estate, after successfully bidding for almost £800,000 kick start funding from the government’s Homes & Communities Agency in 2012.

Keepmoat Homes Ltd are also working on plans to build a number of new houses on the site of the former Kings Thorpe flats complex in Mapperley.

The Regional Development Manager of Keepmoat Homes Ltd, Peter Shambrook, said today “Our development plans have been technically challenging because of the different levels of the site, and we are very pleased with the proposals that we have come up with.

“We had the original 2009 Master Plan drawn up by the City Council five years ago which we used as a frame work, and in just 6 months we were able put together our plans.”

Peter then shown me copies of the proposals saying that the long footpath linking Melville Gardens with Jersey Gardens Road would disappear altogether, and that the adjacent 3.5m steep drop to the lower land would be landscaped to build up the ground making the area look nicer.

This would also be the case with land either side of Jersey Gardens Road leading into the estate from St Matthias Road.

A 1.8m wooden fence would also be introduced around all of the new homes on the upper level of Jersey Gardens adjacent St Matthias Road, to make them safe for new families with children set to move in after completion in 2015.

Zahid Khan of BM3Architecture Ltd, who designed the scheme, added “All of the new houses are of a modern design and they take into account the layout of the landscape, a small number of which overlooks Rocket Park. We think that new young families will be pleased with them and they will be very popular.”

Zahid then shown me the housing layout, and the different house designs along with external cladding finishes.

Keepmoat Homes Ltd will be constructing all of the 110 new houses themselves, and intend to take on a number of local apprentices, as well as providing employment for local people.

Meanwhile the ASRA Housing group have just been given planning permission to build 15 new social houses in Limmen Gardens; work will begin here in the spring.

On the right: Peter Shambrook (Keepmoat Homes), and Debra Ross (Nott’m City Council) studying the new plans.

Housing Development Manager Debra Ross from Nottingham City Council, said today that she was already applying for funding to provide off road parking areas, perimeter iron railings, and rear wooden fences for the original properties in Limmen Gardens.

“Eventually we aim to provide these external improvements around the whole of the Stonebridge Park estate, although it can only be done in phases as the funding becomes available,” she said.

The plans may be viewed on the City Council’s Planning website using the Ref 12/03501/PFUL3.