Building the future of North Werneth
9 May 2008
A major milestone in the regeneration of North Werneth was celebrated with a ceremonial brick laying on Wednesday 7 May.
After years of planning, construction of new homes on Suthers Street, is underway – heralding the first new homes to be built in the town’s extensive plans for the regeneration of North Werneth.
Haslam Homes, part of Keepmoat Ltd, is building 63 properties ranging from two bedroom apartments to generous family-sized five-bedroom, three-storey homes with fully flexible accommodation.
Twenty-one will be available for rent through Oldham Council and West Pennine Housing Association. All the new homes will be built to the Eco Homes Very Good Standard rating and the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) Building for Life ‘Silver’ standard - the national benchmark for well-designed housing and neighbourhoods
Suthers Court is part of the multi-million pound Oldham Rochdale Housing Market Renewal Pathfinder, which aims to tackle some of the deep-rooted problems that face communities in Oldham and Rochdale. Its purpose is to bring about lasting change in order to improve people’s quality of life, and to drive up the prosperity of the area.
Pupils from Corpus Christi school, Chadderton, attended the ceremony as part of their project to record the changes intheir neighbourhood. The pupils have been photographing the clearance and now the rebuilding of the area near their school, making a historical record for future generations.
Haslam Homes North West regional managing director, Trevor Jee said, "Our new homes will introduce a welcome range of house size choices and provide modern efficient alternatives to the existing dwellings. New Homes, as part of a planned regeneration programme, have a profound effect on the sustainability of a neighbourhood by allowing people's aspirations to be realised without moving from the area. Families come in all shapes and sizes and the dominance of terrace homes in this area fails to give the choices people want. Oldham is enjoying a period of tremendous change and we are delighted to part of its regeneration.”
HMR Pathfinder Director Alastair Graham added, “The building of attractive new homes at Suthers Court is a huge boost for north Werneth. With our partners, Housing Market Renewal is bringing the very best in design and high architectural standards within the reach of local people and extending the choice of high quality homes in this neighbourhood.
“Suthers Court is one of many new housing developments which will be coming on stream in the next few months and years as part of the extensive wider regeneration of the whole Borough.”
The partners have launched a new website, www.wernethischanging.co.uk to keep buyers and residents up to date with the ongoing improvements to the area and to highlight the many advantages of buying in this location.