Home builder Berkeley DeVeer’s recently-launched commercial arm, DeVeer Estates, has submitted plans for a major new district centre at City Fields, Wakefield.
The 110,000 sq ft City Fields District Centre will occupy a prime site of around seven acres, situated off Neil Fox Way, close to Pinderfields Hospital. The scheme will deliver new retail, leisure, health and community facilities for the residents of the City Fields area and, given its excellent new link road connections, the City as a whole. The District Centre will form a new hub to serve the existing and new communities and will be based around a supermarket, a family pub, a children’s nursery, a gym and a range of other neighbourhood retail and leisure uses.
This major mixed use scheme sits at the heart of what will be a new community to the East of Wakefield city centre. When complete, City Fields will provide over 2,500 homes, a new primary school, parkland and other public realm, connected via the new Wakefield East Relief Road. New homes surrounding the site are now under construction by a number of national housebuilders.
Dan Newett, the Managing Director at Berkeley DeVeer, said: “We have worked closely with Wakefield Council and the local community to create a scheme that will provide a complete range of facilities for residents of the City Fields area. City Fields District Centre will support this growing community as well as residents who already live in this part of Wakefield.
“We have already seen significant interest from potential occupiers with a number of units now under offer – showing the confidence that there is in this new area of the city. This application also represents a landmark for DeVeer Estates, as it is our first commercial planning application and signals the start of a period of significant growth for this part of our business.”
DeVeer Estates was set up in 2018 by Berkeley DeVeer as part of the Yorkshire-based property company’s ongoing expansion, enabling the delivery of commercial projects as well as its successful residential schemes. City Fields District Centre forms part of an initial £50m plus pipeline of commercial projects for DeVeer Estates, with two further schemes expected to come forward for planning in Yorkshire during 2019.
Fox Lloyd Jones, the Leeds based property advisory business, are acting as Agents and Development Managers on the scheme. Director Paul Fox said: “The team have worked hard to design and evolve a high quality scheme with a mix of uses befitting of such a sizeable new community. We have sought to make this scheme the ‘beating heart’ of the City Fields urban extension and it will offer a lively mix of uses and facilities to unite the community and act as a new hub for socialising and convenience retail.
“The scheme design is entirely bespoke and we want to deliver a move away from traditional retail parks. We are very excited about delivering a new breed of retail centre, and extensive background work is ongoing to bring forward the delivery phase.”
The design team has been led by Wakefield based The Harris Partnership as Architects, alongside detailed input from specialist Masterplanning and Planning Consultants Spawforths.
A decision on the planning application is anticipated in the spring.
