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Flagship development opened by minister

From the archive, first published Friday 19th Mar 2004.

HOUSING and Planning Minister Keith Hill officially opened a flagship development in Basingstoke this week.

Croudace Homes' Sherfield Park will eventually bring around 800 new homes to the residential property market in a specially-designed scheme to combine the elegance of an 18th century parkland setting and the advantages of progressive modern housing.

The minister and the Mayor of Basingstoke and Deane, Cllr Gerry Traynor, were among the high-profile guests at a launch lunch. They were given a tour of the five exquisitely furnished show houses by Tony Timms, the chairman and chief executive of Croudace.

Croudace Homes brought in leading architects to design a creative scheme in which the houses are set in tree-lined avenues, pleasant squares and crescents.

The first phase is The Square, where the show houses are a four-storey Merchant House, the elegant four-bedroomed Villa, a terraced four-bedroomed townhouse, a three-bedroomed Cottage and the two-bedroomed Cob.

Many of the homes have two en suite shower rooms and some even come with a garage set up with a cloakroom and loft room wired for IT equipment for home-based workers.

Sherfield Park is a dynamic departure for Croudace, as the design brief for the development is to create a virtual village, with its own school and community centre.

It will also include Croudace's pioneering pepper potting technique to fully integrate affordable housing with homes for private sale.

Mr Hill said: "I've been impressed by what I've seen at Sherfield Park - a development that has the potential to comprise some 800 dwellings, of which a potential 20 per cent will be affordable.

"I like the way it is planned to build affordable homes alongside larger homes - an approach which I welcome."

He added: "A sustainable community is a mixed, vibrant and varied community." He congratulated Croudace on the quality of design on Sherfield Park.

Mr Timms said: "At this early stage in the total development we are extremely pleased with the house types and layout designs and the environment we will be creating for our purchasers.

"A great deal of effort has been put into the design of this development by the company's designers and the local planning authority case officers, and it is rewarding for them to see the high quality being achieved on the first phase of this major project."

Eight sales or reservations have already been taken at Sherfield Park and the first to move in during the Easter holidays will be John and Stephanie Noakes, who currently live in Basingstoke.

Mr Noakes, who was the first purchaser at the development, said: "We are a busy family with four children and the Townhouse at Sherfield Park seems to cater perfectly for our needs.

"Features that spurred us on to buy included the double studio flat over the garage - a perfect bolt hole for our 17-year-old son - and the sophisticated home networking system with CAT5 cabling, a massive bonus for somebody like me who works in the software industry."

Homes on release on the development range from the three-bedroomed end-of-terrace Cottage at £249,000 to the five-bedroomed detached Lansdowne for £450,000.

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