The £47m development is planned for D’Urton Lane in the Fulwood area of Preston. Trafford Housing, L&Q and Willmott Dixon have created a joint venture company, Laurus Partnership Homes, to deliver the project.
More than half of the homes – 127 of the 250 – will be designated as ‘affordable’ housing, either for rent or purchase. The remainder will be marketed for sale at full market price.
Subject to planning approval, the joint venture will purchase the land for development and begin construction before the end of 2019.
Willmott Dixon regional managing director Anthony Dillon said: “Trafford Housing Trust and Willmott Dixon recently delivered the Limelight development [an extra care scheme for the over-55s] on Shrewsbury Street in Old Trafford and will be bringing this collaboration to Preston as partners in this LLP.”
Trafford Housing Trust chief executive Larry Gold said: “We are proud of our innovative development model which sees us reinvest all profits into providing more new homes and supporting wider social purpose initiatives – a model which we believe should be rolled out across the sector.”
Willmott Dixon said that it will build the homes ‘at an accelerated pace’ using ‘modern methods of construction’ – something which Homes England enthuses about. Duncan Inglis, head of accelerated delivery at Homes England, said: “They will adopt a sub-assemblies and components approach, which includes building techniques such as the installation of pre-cast ground floors, first floor cassettes, and installing pre-formed wiring looms.”
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