This week, Gloucester planners will consider a 650 home extension to Gloucester’s major home, jobs and leisure destination, Kingsway. Which is located on the A38 to the south of the city.
The additional homes are planned for the land in the far south-east corner of the development on the one-time RAF Quedgeley maintenance depot. The land on which the additional homes are to be built had been originally designated as a Rail Freight Yard, but the yard is no longer required due to a re-assessment of requirements by the rail companies.
Explains Project Manager, David Sanderson, “There has already been a local exhibition staged in Quedgeley to gauge public views on the plan to build the additional 650 homes on the designated rail freight land at Kingsway. There will be further public consultation once the plan has been sent to the city planners.
A decision on the additional homes – a third of which are scheduled for low income families – is likely from the planners by early spring next year and if successful, the homes will be built on this particular area of land probably during 2009.”
Under the current agreement, some 2,600 homes are planned on Kingsway with more than 150 already occupied. Eight of the country’s major developers are building on the development, which will also includes commercial development, a local centre, playing fields and a school.
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 almost complete. The building of the new homes on these areas of the development will then commence next spring.
The employment area at Kingsway will be developed by Cheltenham based 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 properties and warehouses. There will also be opportunities for premises to be developed to suit individual occupiers’ requirements.
As this process will evolve over several years, a number of existing buildings will be kept for the medium term so that there is continuity of employment on the Kingsway site as it undergoes this transformation.
The master plan for the community facilities including the Local Centre at Kingsway is currently being finalised with the Planners and will be unveiled later this winter.
Outline permission has already been granted for a range of shops, including a small food store, a health centre and community facilities. Discussions are now also well underway with the local Education Authority as to the programme for the provision of the single entry primary school planned on Kingsway.
Work is scheduled to commence on building the school next year and completion is planned for 2008. £7m will be handed over by the QUVL (Quedgeley Urban Village Ltd), the consortium that is building Kingsway, to be spent on extra provision for secondary school places directly serving the south Gloucester area, which will include the new Kingsway development. These payments are part of agreement relating to the planning permission given to QUVL to develop Kingsway. A second primary school is planned for the later phase of development.
The QUVL consortium consists of new homes developers Persimmon, George Wimpey and Taylor Woodrow as well as the Robert Hitchins Group.
As well as providing cash for schools, the QUVL Consortium has also recently paid over cash for major roadworks in Gloucester.
Explains David, “Quedgeley Urban Village Ltd has just handed over a sum of just under £9m as the contribution it pledged towards the new South West Bypass, which opens next spring. There will also be payments towards public transport and sustainable transport initiatives to be made of around £3m over the next few years. These payments were negotiated as part of the planning permission granted to QUVL to develop Kingsway.”