Foundations laid for housing scheme on site of WWII US military hospital

Property developer Churcham Homes has laid the foundations for a luxury housing estate on the site of a former WWII US military hospital near Cheltenham.The development will feature 26 family houses and is being supported by £10.6m in development finance provided by specialist lender Together.The site, at Ullenwood Courtin Coberley, was initially developed as a series of military hospital buildings in 1943 to treat American casualties from Operation Bolero – the build up to the Allied invasion in Europe – in 1943.The new development of four, five and six-bedroom homes is surrounded by Cotswolds countryside and lies in a 34-acre plot next to a once-secret underground Cold War military bunker, to be used if there was a nuclear strike on Britain.Together provided an initial short-term bridging loan for Churcham Homes to buy the brownfield site and a development finance facility for the construction of the new housing estate.Churcham Homes employed historical and archaeological experts to document and photograph the history of the site, in recognition of its past as a military hospital.After D-Day, it was used for Polish armed forces refugees until they could return to their home country. The complex later became an army reserve training base until many of the original buildings were demolished in the late 1960s and it has housed a small industrial estate in recent years.The reinforced concrete bunker, which backs on to the housing development site, was originally used as an anti-aircraft gun base and was later intended to be the South West regional seat of government in the event of a Soviet nuclear missile attack. The bunker is now under private ownership.Churcham’s homes will include indoor ‘endless’ swimming pools and saunas, en-suite bathrooms, cinema and gym rooms, and green roof terraces. The estate will be worth more than £45million once building is complete, a spokesman for Churcham Homes said.