Transforming a former school into a thriving new community
Warwickshire Property & Development Group (WPDG) and its partner Seddon Construction Limited are preparing to start work on the redevelopment of the site of Manor Park Secondary School.
Following enabling works, including demolition of existing buildings and remediation of the site, work is set to begin on 53 new homes on the site in 2025.
Tony Bunney, Senior Development Manager, has been working on the scheme since joining the company in September 2023.
In this latest blog he talks about bringing forward the Manor Park scheme, planning permission and securing the right partner to deliver the development
Tony Bunney
The Manor Park development in Nuneaton is a milestone scheme for Warwickshire Property & Development Group (WPDG).
It will be the first residential scheme that we have delivered outside of the Develop Warwickshire joint venture – which is already successfully delivering more than 1,700 homes at two other sites in Warwickshire.
The redevelopment of the site has a history which dates back to before WPDG was formed – Warwickshire County Council (WCC) having secured a resolution to grant planning consent in October 2019.
This original consent included for the delivery of an associated Extra Care scheme, which is still planned as part of phase two of the development by WCC. In order to progress with the delivery of the new homes within phase one, our consultants submitted a Section 73 application to vary the planning conditions.
This was granted in May 2024 and it has been full steam ahead over the last seven months.
I have over 30 years of development experience, with a focus primarily on housebuilding and very rarely during that time, have I come across a building occupied by guardians.
For those who aren’t aware, property guardians are people who are granted flexible living in a building and look after it, whilst it is unoccupied. The lead guardian at Manor Park was brilliant to deal with and bent over backwards to be as helpful as he could, having lived on the site for nearly ten years.
We pursued a robust procurement process to secure a partner with which to deliver the scheme.
WPDG is a modest sized entity and we were looking for a partner who understood what we were trying to achieve and the process of market sale housing delivery – for example the expertise in going to market and ensuring the house types respond to local market demand.
Following the tender process, Seddon emerged as our selected partner – they are an organisation that shares our values, understand the need for speed of delivery, without compromising on quality and is backed with long established housebuilding knowledge and contracting capabilities.
We are now targeting a start for construction in 2025, with the development set to be a mix of primarily two, three and four bedroom properties.
We’re looking to create homes that are in keeping with the immediate vicinity and exceed building regulations standards, in terms of energy efficiency.
When completed, they will be the first new homes to be sold directly under a Warwickshire Property & Development Group brand.
We aren’t stopping there though, as we are looking to progress other similar schemes on this basis and already have a number coming through the pipeline.
For our direct delivery residential projects, we are focusing on schemes of a scale between 20 and 70 dwellings, aiming to meet demand and enhance integrated communities across Warwickshire.
From left to right – Stuart Buckley (WPDG), Richard Sterling (Seddon), Tony Clark (Seddon), John Booth (Seddon), Cllr Peter Butlin and Tony Bunney (WPDG).
