Gloucester’s road infrastructure has been given a boost as a consortium of house builders has handed over valuable cash to help provide vital additional public transport in the city and to help foot the multi-million pound bill for the building the long awaited, much talked about, Gloucester South-West Bypass.
The cash comes for this vital transport provision comes from the Quedgeley Urban Village Limited company, which is operating Kingsway, the exciting homes jobs and leisure destination to the south of the city. The development is located on the A38 on land that previously formed the one-time RAF Quedgeley Maintenance Depot.
The QUVL consortium consists of four development companies: George Wimpey, Taylor Woodrow, Persimmon and Cheltenham-based commercial developer Robert Hitchins. Six other leading developers are now building on Kingsway – Kings Oak, Barratt, Bloor, David Wilson and Laing.
Explains Project Manager David Sanderson, “The provision of £1.4m is being made towards public transport provision and some £6m towards the new South West Bypass, which opens next spring. These payments were part of the planning permission given to QUVL to develop on Kingsway.”
Adds QUVL chairman Andy Hill, “This is obviously excellent news for Gloucester. The Kingsway scheme is very much a part of the exciting overall urban regeneration of the neighbouring city area, which is currently being energetically undertaken with considerable Government backing by the Gloucester Heritage Urban Regeneration Company (GHURC). This provision clearly highlights the great advantage the whole city is deriving from development of Kingsway.”
Already some 120 homes have been built on Kingsway with some 80 now occupied. Demolition work is now underway to open up land for a further 2,000 homes on Kingsway. In addition, there’s news of plans for an additional 650 homes.
Many of these extra homes will be built on land to the south east of the current development originally reserved for a Rail Freight depot, which will not now be required.
There are also to be further additional homes built on the areas of Kingsway already given planning permission. This is because of changes to the density of properties allowed on these areas of the Kingsway development.
Planners have just given approval in principle to building all these additional homes, which will take the total number of homes to be built on Kingsway during the current decade to over 3,300.
The demolition and remediation works, including the flattening of buildings, re-cycling of waste materials and the digging up of old services, on the phase 2 and 3 land at Kingsway is nearing completion and the building of the homes on these new areas of the development will then commence next spring.
The QUVL consortium is also providing £6m+ towards a new primary school on Kingsway and additional secondary education provision.
There is also to be an employment area of Kingsway, which will be developed by Robert Hitchins Ltd., and early next year a new and growing business community will start to take shape. On a site of approximately 40 acres, a range of business properties will be developed in a variety of sizes covering offices, light industrial and warehouses. There will also be opportunities for premises to be developed to suit occupiers’ requirements.
As this process will evolve over many years, a number of existing buildings will be kept for medium term so that there is continuity of employment on the Kingsway site as it undergoes this transformation.
It is hoped that, subject to planning consents, a wide range of facilities can be provided at the local centre.
The master plan for this vital area of Kingsway is due for completion in the autumn when further details will be issued and plans for the much talked about Local Centre – again subject to planning consents - should be completed in the autumn. Outline permission is agreed for a range of shops, including a small food store and a community centre.