Earthworks start for Walsall’s £44m Lockside development

McAuliffe Group has begun remediation work on a derelict Black Country steelworks site that is being redeveloped for housing.The clean-up of the former Caparo Engineering works in Walsall paves the way for the construction of 252 new homes.The joint venture developer is Anthem Lovell LLP, a partnership between Morgan Sindall subsidiary Lovell and local housing association Anthem Homes, part of Walsall Housing Group (WHG).The Lockside project on Green Lane is backed by a multi-million-pound grant from the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) under its ‘brownfield first’ policy to get former industrial sites developed ahead of green belt land.The £44m development will see the derelict brought back into economic use, injecting new life and a sense of place into this important canal-side site.Remediation work on the 16 acre site is being undertaken by Wolverhampton-based brownfield specialist McAuliffe Group and will take another four months to complete. The programme includes demolition and extensive earthworks, which will prepare the site for house-building to start in December 2020.The project is expected to take five years to complete, with the first homes predicted to be ready in July 2021.