Member Article

Five star housebuilder starts work at Morpeth

An award-winning housebuilder which is rapidly expanding into the North East has started work on the site of its new development in Morpeth.

Situated at The Dell on the outskirts of the town, Oakland Park by Story Homes will feature a collection of 39 detached four and five bedroom homes made up of eight new house types. With more than 200 registrations of interest from potential buyers, the highly anticipated development will be the first in the company’s history built to its new Signature specification.

David Leightley, 46, from Bedlington, has been recruited as site manager. He said: “I have been watching Story Homes’ expansion into the region with great interest. The company is certainly making waves in the housebuilding industry by recruiting top talent and building a very high quality, competitive product. When the opportunity came up to manage the Oakland Park site, I jumped at the chance.

“The location alone is absolutely fantastic; it is going to be a very striking residential area. We are currently in the first phase of site setup, which includes laying down the infrastructure, roads and sewers. In a couple of weeks we will be able to start building the foundations of the first plots, including the sales and marketing suite and show home which will be open at the end of the year.

“What is really impressive about Story Homes is its commitment to quality throughout the build process. The exterior finish and street scenes are fantastic, but even down to joists, stud work and flooring, in places that customers will never see, is a considerably higher specification. As a site manager it gives me great pride in the job to be able to build such a high quality home for customers.”

Managing director of Story Homes North East, Ian Worgan, said: “We are very pleased that David has joined us to work on this significant development at Morpeth. He has an excellent reputation in the industry for delivering a first class product, so he was a natural fit for Story Homes.”

Oakland Park is set to bring additional benefits, including job creation and opportunities both directly and indirectly for local suppliers, contractors, businesses and services in Northumberland.

Story Homes currently has five live developments across North Tyneside, County Durham and Teesside, with three further sites due to open in 2016. In March this year, the housebuilder was awarded a five-star rating for customer satisfaction from the Home Builders Federation (HBF) and the National House Building Council (NHBC).

Customers rated their buying experience with an outstanding satisfaction rate of more than 90 per cent, compared with the industry average of just 86 per cent. More than nine in 10 customers said they would recommend Story Homes to a friend.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Laura Kingston .