New homes planned on ex-industry sites

Mar 13 2008

PROPOSALS for two new residential developments on land adjacent to the former Clydesdale steel works near Motherwell have been submitted to North Lanarkshire Council.

Hamilton-based property developer Banks Developments, which is carrying out the £110m regeneration of the former industrial site, is now looking to develop about 11 further acres of ‘brownfield’ land in the New Stevenston area.

Under the new plans, 74 homes would be built on an eight-acre site to the east of the Clydesdale site, with a further 16 homes and 24 apartments constructed on a three acre site to the south.

As well as carrying out full remediation of what is contaminated land, Banks would also build significant new noise defences to address the noise from the nearby Vallourec Mannesmann steel tube factory.

A full noise report and noise maps have been produced as part of the planning application, which Banks is hoping to have a decision on by the summer, with a view to tying in the work that would be required on site with that already ongoing at the Clydesdale site.

Andrew Liddell, regional manager at Banks Developments, said: “Noise issues were a primary concern during the development of proposals for the Clydesdale regeneration scheme, but the solution we have created for addressing them now makes redevelopment of this extension both feasible and desirable.

“The land to the east of the Clydesdale site, which was where much of the waste produced by the steel works was dumped, would be cleaned up and levelled, and the soil would be utilised to make noise attenuation defences for both of the areas included in the extension plans.

“The noise assessments and mapping we have carried out as part of our application show that this is a highly effective solution to the problem, and undertaking remediation and construction on these two pieces of land alongside the ongoing work at the main redevelopment would significantly reduce its impact on local communities.

“There is a real need to provide more homes for an expanding population, and we believe brownfield developments of this sort have a crucial role to play in meeting this need.”

The Clydesdale redevelopment is already the second-largest regeneration scheme in the area, after Ravenscraig, and involves the remediation of contaminated land followed by the construction of more than 500 new homes.