URBAN Splash is close to revealing plans for a 'new kind of housing,' according to founder Tom Bloxham.
It could put the first batch of its reinvented new-build homes on a one-acre site next to its recently launched Longlands scheme in Stalybridge (pictured above).
"I'm as excited by this project as I am was 20 years ago when I decided to to do loft apartments in city centres. Nobody really believed it would work."
The firm has planning for two more apartment blocks but may look to build housing there instead.
Bloxham told Confidential: "Chimney Pot Park was a very interesting reinvention of what the traditional house was like, but what we want to do is to try and reinvent what the new-build house looks like."
"I'm as excited by this project as I am was 20 years ago when I decided to to do loft apartments in city centres. Nobody really believed it would work.
"During the next 12 months, we'll be showing our ideas on how we can reinvent the idea of a modern house."
Bloxham said Longlands had attracted a good mix of renters and buyers, with government initiatives such as the Firstbuy and Homebuy schemes proving invaluable. Bloxham said these intiatives were often too short-lived, however, and developers were looking forward to the government's proposed Mortgage indemnity scheme.
"If there's going to be any criticism, it's that schemes tend to be for relatively short periods of time and stop-start," he said. "It would be better to have longer periods which are more consistent."
Only eleven properties remain unsold in the scheme's second phase, Patten House.
