VIP visits Miller Homes' Birkacre Park in Chorley

The Chairman of the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), Robert Napier made a special visit to Miller Homes' innovative Birkacre Park development in Chorley on Thursday 14 October.

The HCA (formally English Partnerships) selected Miller Homes to build 149 new houses on the 6.5-hectare site that lies between the Yarrow Country Park and Duxbury Golf Club.

Birkacre Park creates a new residential community featuring two bedroom apartments and three, four, and five bedroom houses. The architecture of the scheme brings the traditional qualities of an English village to a modern development, and all of the homes have achieved a ‘Very Good’ rating from the Building Research Establishment, Environmental Assessment Method for eco-homes (BREEAM).

At the heart of the scheme is a village green that features a gazebo, pond and seating to provide a community focal point. The aspiration for a village community is further enhanced with the attractive splayed granite cobbles, block paviours and street furniture. These combine to create an invisible traffic calming principle known as HomeZone. This improves road safety by giving equal priority to both people and vehicles in residential areas and complements the village theme. Birkacre Park is the first HCA development in Lancashire to use the HomeZone concept.

Attention to detail and craftsmanship is evident everywhere you look. The use of antique design street lighting, iron railings and sculptured boundary walls with sandstone copings, brick pillars and soldier courses, all employ traditional construction skills to achieve attractive street scenes that are befitting this special location.

Commenting on the development, Robert Napier said: “I was really impressed with what I saw at Birkacre Park – the whole scheme has a great village feel and the homes are clearly of excellent quality.

“You only have take a quick walk around the scheme to get a feel for how much of an impact the use of HomeZone areas has had. The roads are quiet, welcoming and most importantly of all safe. This excellent scheme sets a superb example for how traffic calming measures can be employed to the great benefit to the community.”

Full details of the new homes available at Birkacre Park and Miller Homes purchasing options are available from the marketing suite on Lower Burgh Way, Eaves Green, Chorley PR7 3TA. It is open from 10.30am to 5.30pm Thursday to Monday.