Member Article

Alan goes back to his roots to become 100th buyer

Fond memories of Parson Cross prompted Alan Pickstone to buy a new home on the site of the council house he grew up in as a lad.

The 44-year-old accountant spent twenty years at 18 Falstaff Crescent before it was demolished in 2003 to make way for redevelopment.

Now that regeneration is underway, Alan had no hesitation in going back to his roots to buy a home on the Brearley Forge site with his fiancée Amy Ramage. And this return to his old stamping ground also made the couple the 100th buyers of a Sheffield Housing Company home.

Said Alan: “I have always had a connection with the Parson Cross area, so when the opportunity arose to buy a new build house with Amy, we jumped at the chance. Now that the old houses have gone it’s hard to say exactly how near our new home is to where I used to live, but it’s very close. A few yards at most.

“I have very happy memories of the area and the chance to get a modern, spacious and eco-friendly home in Parson Cross made the decision to buy an easy one. We are settling in nicely and are really looking forward to becoming part of the new neighbourhood.”

Amy, 20 and also an accountant at the same Sheffield accountancy firm as Alan, added: “It seems to be a series of very happy co-incidences. I love the house and the fact that it’s so close to where Alan grew up and that we are the 100th buyers just makes everything that bit more special.”

The couple’s three storey town house is part of a city-wide regeneration scheme which will see Sheffield benefit from the creation of 2,300 new homes – around 10% of which will be for affordable rent.

The project is being led by Sheffield Housing Company, a partnership between Sheffield City Council, Keepmoat and Great Places, which has a 15-year plan to build in seven of Sheffield’s most vibrant neighbourhoods.

These will be a mixture of two, three, four, five and six bedroomed properties with the latest home energy saving systems and living-space enhancements which can be easily modified as residents’ needs change – making them lifetime homes. No other developer builds to the exacting standards specified by Sheffield Housing Company.

Councillor Harry Harpham, Sheffield City Council’s Cabinet Member for Homes and Neighbourhoods, handed Alan and Amy the keys to their new home and said: “It is great to see people wanting to return to the neighbourhoods being transformed by this ambitious project and to welcome our 100th buyers.

“Our aim has always been to rebuild not just homes but the communities in these parts of Sheffield and I am delighted to say that we are already beginning to see this happen.”

Developments currently underway include Brearley Forge and nearby Brearley Springs in the Shirecliffe area and Cutler’s View in Norfolk Park and plans are being prepared for the next phase of approximately 500 homes.

This will involve the building of around 67 homes at Earl Marshal Drive, Fir Vale; 185 at Ravencarr Place, Manor; 111 on three sites at Park Grange Drive and Park Grange Road, Norfolk Park; 126 more at two sites at Buchanan Road, Parson Cross and 48 at Crumpsall Drive, Shirecliffe.

Public consultations on these proposals started earlier this month and local people are being given the opportunity to view the designs and make comments to the architects and representatives from Sheffield Housing Company and the project partners.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Paul Dobbie .