Homeowners Begin Designing Nottingham’s First Group Custom Build Community

Future homeowners at The Fruit Market, Nottingham’s group custom build community from specialist regeneration developer Blueprint, have begun the exciting design stage of this pioneering new housing project. The very first residents are now working with progressive architects Letts Wheeler, to individually customise the size, layout and look of their new homes.

Situated on Bath Street near Sneinton Market, The Fruit Market development will comprise around 40 homes once complete and include a great mix of contemporary architectural houses and apartments in a heritage setting.  The project allows homeowners to individually customise their homes, which they will own outright, and to help design shared elements that will be owned and managed by the custom build group. The process will be enabled by Blueprint and the benefits have attracted a wide cross section of people.

Local musician, Peter Beardsworth, is buying his first home at The Fruit Market.  He said: “I’ chose The Fruit Market because the houses looked so cool, offered good value for money and are in a great location – I’m extremely excited to be living so close to the Lace Market.  Plus, the ability to adapt the design to suit my needs really appealed to me. The process so far has been a lot of fun, co-ordination on the project has been great and the group gets on well.”

Tom Rogers and his partner, Ksenia Chmutina, are currently living just down the road from The Fruit Market.  He commented: “We’ve lived in Nottingham for 10 years now and have grown to love city living and the benefits that it provides which is one of the main reasons we chose The Fruit Market project. We were aware of Blueprint and have been impressed by some of their previous projects at Green Street, Hobart & Pitcairn and Trent Basin.

“We’re very excited that the design phase is now underway. It’s great that we have the opportunity to have a say in the size, layout and specification of our future home and the architect, Letts Wheeler, has helped make the process really simple. The group nature of the project has enabled us to get know our future neighbours, so it will be interesting, once the homes are built, to move into an almost ready-made community.”

The £8m project is just a few minutes’ walk from the city’s cultural hub of Hockley, on the doorstep of Victoria Park – one of Nottingham’s largest green spaces – and is next door to the multi-million pound redeveloped Sneinton market. Development Manager at Blueprint, Alec Hamlin, said he has been delighted that people in Nottingham are buying into this new way of delivering housing.

He said: “The Fruit Market offers homebuyers the chance to truly shape the spaces and community that they will live in, without the headache of starting from scratch. The benefit over traditional self-build models is that homeowners are supported by property professionals throughout the entire process.  We’re creating a framework which we hope can be replicated, making this new way of delivering housing more accessible to a wider number of potential buyers.”

Once the design process is complete, a detailed planning application will be submitted in November.  Nottingham based building company, J. Tomlinson Ltd will then begin construction of the first homes in early 2019.

Applications for the next phase of the project are now open. Alec added: “Phase Two at The Fruit Market will offer 12 properties in total – a mix of two bedroom apartments and three/ four bedroom houses.  We’re now accepting applications and urging anyone keen to find out more to register their interest now.”

To find out more about The Fruit Market and to register your interest in Phase Two, visit www.fruitmarket.info