AN imaginative development of 44 new homes and commercial workspaces for up to 100 tenants on the site of a 250-year-old tannery by housing developer Stonewood Partnerships has been funded by government housing accelerator Homes England.
The agency has approved significant funding from its Home Building Fund for the Wiltshire developer to undertake the ambitious residential and commercial conversion on the historic site in Holt, west Wiltshire.
The listed stone tannery buildings will be converted into offices, studios, workshops and services for up to 100 tenants, with 44 one and two bedroomed apartments and a selection of two, three and four-bedroomed-homes around a communal public space. Stonewood has acquired the residential site but tannery owner J&T Beaven retains ownership of the commercial space on the site which it has operated since 1770.
Stonewood commercial director Ben Lang said: “We just fell in love with the site as soon as we saw it. There’s a wonderful sense of history here and we’ll capture and preserve that in this development.”
Stonewood contracts director Kris Beasley said great care is being taken to preserve the listed tannery buildings and many of the industrial artefacts lying around the site. “We are setting aside things like old boilers and the beautiful old tanning drums so that we can incorporate them into the new development in some way,” he said.
Homes England’s senior transactions manager Johnathan Tuck, who is based at the agency’s South West regional office in Bristol, said the huge planning complexity of the project, which required careful co-ordination between the commercial and residential sides of the development, could have deterred many developers and funders from becoming involved.
He said: “This is a complex scheme because the commercial and the residential developments are linked. You can’t do certain things residentially until you’ve done certain things on the commercial site and the commercial site is not owned by Stonewood. That’s a massively complicated factor, that you have two parts of the jigsaw that need to be delivered simultaneously, but two different parts of the site are owned by different parties.
“Creating the structure, particularly the legal structure, to make sure all of that happens was the difficult bit. Genuinely I don’t believe another funder would have supported this scheme because of that reason. Homes England is unique in that we are here to do stuff that the market won’t do, we are an interventionist fund.”
Stonewood’s contracting arm, Stonewood Builders, which has a 45-year track record in refurbishing listed buildings, will take undertake the commercial project.
Said Mr Tuck: “Stonewood ticked all the boxes because they have a good reputation in the market as a contractor – local SME developer, difficult site that has laid undeveloped for some time a decent number of homes and the commercial side of the scheme.”
He said projects like The Tannery are essential in providing badly needed homes. “The Tannery was always an interesting site because of its history. It brings challenges because it is quite a large site, but it is in a village that really needs new homes.
“While our involvement is purely limited to the new homes, by us supporting that particular element of the scheme it allows the commercial side of the development to come forward. The refurbishment of the commercial buildings bring new space to that area and complement what’s already there.”
Work is now well underway on the site, with the first homes being released this spring. It is recommended for potential buyers to register their interest now with Stonewood Partnerships at stonewoodpartnerships.co.uk.