Wavensmere Homes and Montane Partners have started work on site to redevelop the North Place surface car park in Cheltenham’s Central Conservation Area.
The £50m Arkle Court development will comprise 147 houses and apartments, designed to sensitively enhance the street scene, including Grade II* listed St Margaret’s Terrace.
A resolution to grant planning approval was announced in August 2024, followed by the recent agreement of the S106 obligations for the scheme.
Site enabling works are now underway, with groundworks scheduled to commence in Q2 2025.
The development will be delivered sequentially from the eastern boundary with North Place, running anti-clockwise to improve the site frontage.
Arkle Court has been designed by nationally acclaimed architects Glancy Nicholls to complement the town’s Regency architecture and create a sustainable new community in the heart of the town centre.
Construction for the 75 three-bedroom townhouses and 72 one- and two-bedroom apartments is anticipated to take two and a half years to complete, with the first phase of the project scheduled for home handovers in Q3 2026.
Extending to over 3.5-acres, Arkle Court will include multiple areas of high quality landscaped open space, with the opportunity for a public art installation to be created as part of the Cheltenham Paint Festival.
Vehicular, pedestrian and cycle access is from North Place, less than half a mile from the town centre’s historic core.
The redevelopment will connect Pittville Park on the one side, through North Place, to the thriving Brewery Quarter, the Lower High Street Poundland site, which will see a mixed-use redevelopment, through to the cyber-tech Hub MX and Minster Gardens.
In 2013, the Borough Council awarded planning for a large supermarket and 143 new homes on this site, which never materialised.
The designs for Arkle Court are gas-free with a target A-rated energy performance for the townhouses and B for the apartments.
Wavensmere Homes’ specification of local materials will help to reduce carbon footprint, along with an array of energy saving and generating technology, including air sourced heat pumps, solar PV panels and centralised mechanical ventilation heat recovery systems. Each house will also benefit from dedicated parking which will be served by 7kW EV car chargers.
James Dickens, managing director of Wavensmere Homes, said: “We are thrilled to be demonstrating our focus on deliverability by starting work at North Place to continue the renaissance of Cheltenham’s St Paul’s area. This significant regeneration scheme will deliver much-needed new homes for the Regency Town – ready to occupy from next year – as well as acting as a strategic stepping stone in our expansion beyond the Midlands.”
Councillor Rowena Hay, leader at Cheltenham Borough Council’ said: “It was wonderful to visit and see work getting underway at the former site of Black & White’s Coach Station, which has been underutilised as a surface car park for many years.”
Nick Spencer, co-founder at Montane Partners, said: “It has taken years of partnership working to unlock this site and commence work on site. While the viability assessment for the project did not allow for 20 per cent affordable housing, we will proudly be delivering this allocation on-site, along with a contribution of over £1m for upgrades towards local education, libraries and the Cotswold Beechwoods Special Area of Conservation. In addition, a high proportion of the new homes will be aimed at first time buyers and young families, with attainable prices set significantly below prime Cheltenham values.”
Image source: Wavensmere Homes
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