Investment helps to revive former bakery and create homes

The development scheme by Vistry Partnership’s for the former Harvestime Bakery in Walsall received a £1.5m investment from the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA), which was used to clean up the site and make it suitable for development.

Eighty eight new homes have been completed on the 4.6-acre former brownfield site with many already occupied.

Sixty six have been made available for private rent through Gatehouse Bank and 22 are classed as affordable.

Andy Street, the Mayor of the West Midlands, who also chairs the WMCA, said: "Not long ago this site was lying derelict and now, thanks to our investment in brownfield first regeneration, we are providing good quality, affordable housing for dozens of local people.

"Brownfield sites like Harvestime are notoriously difficult to develop, which is why they’ve remained derelict for so long.

"But with the funds we’ve secured from Government, we’ve been able to intervene and clean up the land, making it ready for new homes and commercial spaces while simultaneously creating local jobs and helping to protect our precious greenbelt.

"This work to unlock some of the region’s most complex industrial sites for development has continued even through the pandemic, and Harvestime is yet another example of this."

Harvestime Bakeries was once one of Walsall’s biggest employers and there had been a bakery on the site since the 1800s.

But the company went into administration twice in 2005 and was rescued through an agreed takeover package by Maple Leaf Bakery UK, securing 250 jobs after more than 100 workers were made redundant.

The bakery closed in 2012 after the company announced it was leaving the sliced bread market, with around 230 staff being encouraged to apply for posts at the Perfection Foods bakery, which opened elsewhere in the town.