Princess visits innovative housing development on Princess Avenue
Earlier this week, The Wrekin Housing Group were honoured to welcome Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal to visit some of their brand new eco-friendly properties in Arleston.
The four innovative properties, on Princess Avenue, are highly sustainable timber-framed passivhaus buildings, that will be ready for customers to move in to by the end the year. The Princess Avenue development also includes a further 41 traditionally built properties.
The Princess Royal met the team of Wrekin trainees who have built the family homes. All of the trainees are new to the construction sector and have benefitted from training at The Marches Construction Ready Partnership, leading to them all having jobs with Wrekin.
New Build Trainee Simone Hitchen said, “Less than 18 months ago I had never even been on a building site, now I have shown a Princess round a house that was hand built by me and the team.
“Her Royal Highness was really interested in the roles we had all played during the build and also in the sustainability of the homes. We were only told she was coming on Friday and it’s really made our day that a member of the Royal Family has taken the time to come and see us here in Wellington and visit the houses that we have built.”
Wrekin’s Group Chief Executive Wayne Gethings said, “It really is a privilege to have been able to welcome The Princess Royal to visit these great houses today. The team have done a fantastic job with these innovative buildings that have been designed with the same finish as the traditionally built houses on the site.
“As an organisation we are fully committed to addressing the future sustainability of our housing stock and these passivhaus homes are just one element of that.”
Wrekin are set to continue their commitment to eco-friendly housing with a new project, set to start this autumn, in which they will be retrofitting battery storage and solar photovoltaic technologies in to existing properties.
Earlier in the day Her Royal Highness had visited Harper Adams University and The Marches Construction Ready Partnership training hub in Trench where she met people involved in a number of employment projects run by local training provider Landau. After visiting Princess Avenue Her Royal Highness went on to further engagements in Telford.
Pictured above: Princess visits Princess Avenue: Her Royal Highness meeting trainee new build operatives, Jayden Jones, Owen Pennant and Simone Hitchen, at The Wrekin Housing Group’s passivhaus development in Arleston, Shropshire.
2nd October 2020