Building starts on £34m Wolverhampton housing estate
Building work has started on a new £34 million housing development in Wolverhampton that will serve as a lasting tribute to the crew of a Lancaster bomber plane that crashed near the site in 1945.
The Marches, on Lakefield Road, Wednesfield – close to Lichfield Road where the disaster happened – will commemorate the seven airmen who lost their lives by naming a road on the estate after each of them.
WV Living has appointed construction giants Willmott Dixon, who have recently taken over refurbishment work on Wolverhampton Civic Hall, to undertake the 266-homes development.
The new estate will be made up of a mixture of two, three and four-bedroom houses, with the first properties due to be completed in early 2020.
Roads on the site will honour the memories of pilot Bernard Hall, flight engineer Ronald James O’Donnell, navigator Reginald Henry Smith, air bomber Victor Francis Dobell Meade, wireless operator Gordon Leonard Rabbetts and air gunners Vincent Reginald Woodburn and John Alfred Sills, who all died in the crash.
Wolverhampton deputy mayor, Councillor Greg Brackenridge, said: “These homes are much needed locally and this is a fitting tribute to those heroes who defended our nation. There will also be new trees planted and various other memorials on the estate.
“Once completed, this development will inject further life into our already very vibrant village.”
Kate Martin, the council’s director of housing, added: “This is fantastic news for WV Living and for the city. The Marches will provide much-needed high quality homes to rent and buy.
“We are confident this development will also boost local business and skills and add further pace to housing growth across the city.”
Operating out of East Kirkby, Lincolnshire, the Lancaster came down on the evening of May 17, 1945, in what is thought to be the only deaths of servicemen in Wolverhampton throughout the Second World War.
The nearby former Albion pub also changed its name to The Lancaster several years ago in honour of the crewmen killed.
Over the next four years, WV Living is aiming to build more than 1,000 homes across the city, with The Marches the largest of its first-phase sites.
