£40m rebuild of 88 homes demolished over 'foundation issues' nears end

Speedy developers have quickly re-built 88 new homes on a huge new housing development on the edge of the university city of Cambridge after they were bulldozed earlier this year following foundation issues.

The houses at the Darwin Green site in Cambridge have been resurrected after Barratt David Wilson Homes Cambridgeshire admitted last year that the houses needed to be demolished and remade - all be it at a cost of £40 million.

The developers said last June that 'during inspections' of the Darwin Green site they found some of the homes did not meet their 'usual high standards' and the 'most effective course of action' was to 'demolish the properties and re-build them.' 

The demolition work took eight weeks and was completed in March earlier this year.

The mammoth task of re-building the homes started in May and new aerial photos show the homes are now mostly complete.

In a planning application to Cambridge City Council for the demolition last autumn, the developers said tiles and other materials, such as doors, windows, sanitary and kitchen equipment, would be salvaged where possible and concrete and brick would be crushed on site and reused.

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Aerial photos show how all 88 newbuild homes on Cambridge estate have been demolished after they were bulldozed due to 'foundation issues'

The massive development, which lies 1.6 miles north west of the city centre, has outline approval for up to 1,593 homes, as well as a new primary school, supermarket and library.

The new community will also feature a central park, with 15-acres of open space, and sports facilities.

It is believed a number of the affected homes had already been sold, but were not yet occupied and some were in the process of still being built.

A spokesman for Barratt David Wilson Homes Cambridgeshire said last June it was a 'small number of unoccupied properties' that did not meet 'our usual high standards.'

They said: 'As a five-star house builder we have an extensive quality assurance process and during inspections we found that a small number of unoccupied properties at our Darwin Green development did not meet our usual high standards. 

'Unfortunately, the most effective course of action at this stage is to demolish the properties and rebuild them. We have apologised to the customers affected and understand their frustrations, but we are doing all that we can to lessen the impact of this for them.

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Huge crack appears on flats at housing estate where 88 brand new properties face demolition

'The most important thing is that the homes we build for our customers are of the highest quality possible and this means spotting and mistakes and putting them right, which is what we are doing here.'

Local Councillor Cheney Payne described the news as 'absolutely shocking' at the time and told local paper, The Cambridge Independent, she 'couldn't quite believe it.'

Residents were left horrified in June last year when Barratt and David Wilson revealed the construction issues.

Brenda Zhou, 27, who bought her £665,000 house on the street, told MailOnline: 'It's a joke. It's unbelievable, how can this even happen?'

Another shocked homeowner in her 60s, who asked not to be named, added: 'It's just beggars belief. We came here in 2021 because we wanted a quiet life. They started building the following year.

'Now they are knocking everything down and then they will have to start again all over again from scratch. It means we're going to have another year at least of intolerable building work - noise, vibrations, dirt and dust in the air. That's my idea of hell.'