News: First phase to kickstart Waverley development

Plans are being prepared for the first phase of the massive Waverley new community development in Rotherham.

The £100m regeneration project on the site of the former Orgreave colliery is the biggest brownfield site development in South Yorkshire and covers 741 acres, an area bigger than Sheffield city centre.

UK Coal's property arm, Harworth Estates has put together plans for phase 1a of the development that will create 270 dwellings. This is expected to kickstart development of the whole site which is planned to create 3,800 homes over a development phase of 20 years.

In April, UK Coal reported that delivery of the Waverley project will commence through a series of phased sales with national house builders and in August reported that: "the project is attracting interest from a number of developers and housebuilders and we are bringing forward the first phases of development."

To enable this first phase a planning application to vary conditions from the outline application, relating to phasing and housing density, has now been submitted. "Orgreave Greenway" will be in the south-western end of the site to the north of Highfield Spring and east of the Highfield Commercial land.

A spokesperson from agents, BNP Paribas Real Estates, said: "This area of the site is currently most attractive to the market and therefore bringing it forward first will ensure the commencement of the wider Waverley New Community development."

The homes are set to be a mixture of 2-3 storey, detached, semi-detached and terraced dwellings and are anticipated to achieve Code for Sustainable Homes Level Four or equivalent.

The agents added that a detailed reserved matters application for the first phase is to be submitted shortly.

Waverley website

Images: waverleycommunity.com