Developer spends £14m on new homes

Jun 20 2008 by Tony McDonough, Liverpool Daily Post

ONE of Southport’s best-known developers is defying the housing market downturn to spend £14m building 37 new homes in Formby.

Marcel Zachariah’s York Homes is behind the Cable Street development, a scheme featuring a mix of three and four bedroom properties close to the centre of the town.

Phase one, which involves the construction of 25 homes, is under way and scheduled for completion in November.

Phase two will see the construction of 12 more homes and, when complete, the project will be one of the largest residential schemes to have been built in the area during the last 20 years.

Despite the credit crunch, the Royal Bank of Scotland’s property finance team in Liverpool is providing backing to the project.

The first part of the debt funding was agreed in October last year, with the final deal signed in the past few weeks.

Cable Street comprises detached, semi-detached and linked homes, which vary in size from 1,650 sq ft to 2,220 sq ft. Each home features en-suite bedroom facilities, a garage and parking spaces. The site show homes and reservation centre will open in July.

Mr Zachariah said: “Our aim is to create desirable homes that have character and stand out from others in the market.”

York Homes is a Southport-based development company accredited by both the NHBC and local authority planning and building control.

The company has undertaken several residential schemes in the Southport area, including Aughton Road, an 18-apartment scheme in Birkdale, and Ennismore Gardens, a 15-apartment development in Southport.

RBS relationship manager Andy Webster said: “Marcel, Mark Ellis and their team at York Homes have come up with an attractive and innovative scheme that will complement the range of properties available in the Formby area.”

Earlier this year, Natwest, part of RBS, backed another of Mr Zachariah’s ventures – AMZME – to the tune of £800,000 to purchase a business park in Southport.

tonymcdonough