Member Article

Local Humber student helps housebuilder with name of new development

A student from a nearby secondary school has helped inspire the name of a new housing development in New Waltham.

The local housebuilder, Barratt Homes Yorkshire East, launched a competition with the school to name the development, with the winning entry and name of the development being Wigmore Park.

Year 7 pupils from Tollbar Academy, which is located close to Barratt Homes’ development on Station Road, were challenged by the five star housebuilder to suggest potential names for the new site, with the best being officially adopted.

The chosen name, Wigmore Park, came from pupil Ruby Gallacher, aged 12, who chose to reference Grimsby’s fishing heritage, a renowned industry for the area.

Wigmore was a British steam Trawler of 345 tons, and on 18 November 1939 was en route from Grimsby for the fishing grounds when it was torpedoed by U-22 and sunk, with 16 members of crew unfortunately losing their lives. The chosen name, Wigmore, honours all the fishermen whose lives were lost during this period.

Aside from the chosen name, other worthy suggestions were Tiger Fields, which is based off The Ross Tiger; the first of a fleet of 12 middle water boats for Ross Trawlers Ltd and is now homed at the Grimsby Heritage Centre, and Paddock 1856, which stems from the first dock in Grimsby opening in 1856.

As a thank you for taking part in the development naming activity, Barratt Homes Yorkshire East bought the school a Davis Vantage Vue weather station to be used by the children to see weather forecasts, moon phases, sunrise and sunset times, and more.

Linda Willoughby, Curriculum Leader of Careers and Personal Development at Tollbar Academy, said: “We’re extremely grateful to Barratt Homes Yorkshire East for wanting to team up with our pupils and get their creative minds working to come up with a name for the new development! The children loved the activity, and we’re really thankful for the weather station! We’re really excited to start using it.”

Linzi Bentley, Sales Manager at Barratt Homes’ Wigmore Park development, added: “We always look to support the communities in which we build and develop a strong relationship with them, which is why we wanted to team up with the pupils at Tollbar Academy when naming this development. We received some excellent entries, which all reflected the New Waltham and Grimsby community, history and nature, and we’d like to congratulate Ruby and her peers at the school for their efforts, as it was hard to choose a winner from the fantastic entries we received! We’re really excited for Wigmore Park to come to life, and to start to build a community here.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Richard Savage .