IN Brief:
- Esh Construction has handed over all 296 affordable homes at Hillside Gardens in Grove Hill, two years ahead of schedule.
- The £56m development included roads, sewers, plot infrastructure, and Section 278 highway works, including a signalised junction on Keith Road.
- Hillside Gardens completes three developments delivered with Thirteen Group, representing a combined £110m investment in 546 homes.
Esh Construction has completed the £56m Hillside Gardens affordable housing development in Middlesbrough two years ahead of schedule, handing over 296 homes in the Grove Hill area. The project concludes a three-development programme undertaken with Thirteen Group, which has invested £110m in delivering 546 affordable homes across Middlesbrough.
Hillside Gardens comprises two, three, and four-bedroom houses and bungalows, all available for affordable rent. The scheme replaces residential accommodation demolished more than a decade ago and is the largest individual housing development completed by Thirteen. The project has involved residential construction alongside the roads, drainage, service connections, and highway improvements required to establish the completed neighbourhood.
The handover follows earlier completions at Kedward Avenue in Brambles Farm and Union Village in Gresham. Those schemes provided 105 and 145 homes respectively, bringing the combined total with Hillside Gardens to 546. All three developments have now been delivered, with the final project completing substantially earlier than its original programme.
Esh’s affordable housing division managed construction of the residential buildings, supported by specialist teams within the wider group. Lumsden & Carroll, its housing infrastructure business, delivered the roads and sewer works and undertook plot infrastructure activities throughout Hillside Gardens. These included service installation, paving, topsoiling, and block paving, forming the external infrastructure necessary to connect individual homes with the wider development.
Roads and drainage systems are an important part of the construction sequence on a large residential scheme. Underground services must be coordinated with foundations, plot access, and future highway surfaces, while drainage routes need to accommodate the levels and connections established by the site design. Completing these works in an appropriate sequence reduces the need to disturb finished surfaces when subsequent utilities or access arrangements are installed.
Infrastructure also influences the order in which individual plots can be completed and occupied. Construction access must be maintained while building work continues, but the finished scheme requires permanent roads, pedestrian routes, and external spaces suitable for residents. The transition from temporary site arrangements to completed infrastructure therefore needs to be coordinated with the final stages of residential construction and handover.
Esh’s civil engineering division delivered the associated Section 278 highway works, including a new signalised junction on Keith Road. The package also incorporated routes for pedestrians and cyclists, road surfacing, and replacement kerb lines. These improvements connect the new residential development with the established highway network and form part of the infrastructure required to support its occupation.
Section 278 agreements provide the mechanism through which developers can undertake approved alterations to existing public highways. The work must satisfy the highway authority’s requirements and be coordinated with traffic management, utility infrastructure, and the condition of the surrounding road network. The Keith Road improvements therefore involved construction activity beyond the residential development boundary.
The junction and associated access works are especially relevant to the delivery of a development containing almost 300 homes. Additional residential traffic, pedestrian movements, and cycling access need to be accommodated within the surrounding network. The installed signal controls, road layout, and crossing arrangements provide the permanent infrastructure through which these movements can be managed.
Mark Binns, Operations Director at Esh Construction, attributed the early handover to the project team’s delivery and its working relationship with Thirteen. The contractor has confirmed that Hillside Gardens was completed two years ahead of schedule, although it has not published a detailed comparison of the original and revised construction programmes or quantified the contribution of individual methods to that acceleration.
The development was funded through Thirteen’s strategic partnership with Homes England, alongside a £2.8m contribution from the Government’s Brownfield Housing Fund. Tees Valley Combined Authority approved the brownfield funding. The investment supported residential redevelopment on land where earlier homes had been removed, returning the site to use through a substantial affordable housing scheme.
Previously developed land can present different requirements from an undeveloped site because existing foundations, buried infrastructure, ground conditions, and historical uses may need investigation. These factors influence the design and construction of roads, drainage, and buildings. Esh has not published a detailed remediation record for Hillside Gardens, so the scope of any ground treatment beyond the confirmed infrastructure works cannot be established from the current project information.
The wider delivery team included IDPartnership Northern, 3e Consulting Engineers Limited, Elliott Associates, and ONE Environments. Their involvement supported the residential development and associated engineering requirements. The arrangement brought together the building construction programme, specialist infrastructure activities, and highway works under the wider project delivery process.
Esh also recorded 474 weeks of apprenticeship activity and 37 weeks of T Level placements associated with the scheme. These figures represent accumulated periods of training rather than the number of individual apprentices or students engaged. They formed part of the contractor’s Constructing Local Strategy, through which project delivery is linked to training opportunities and wider community activities.
A contribution of £25,383 was provided to Beech Grove Primary School’s specialist autism provision. The funding supported improvements to learning, sensory, and outdoor spaces. This contribution formed part of the project’s social value programme and was separate from the residential and highway construction activities undertaken at Hillside Gardens.
Thirteen has identified further affordable housing investment following completion of the Middlesbrough programme. Sharon Thomas, the organisation’s Chief Investment and Property Officer, confirmed that it has secured £350m through Homes England’s Strategic Affordable Homes Programme to support future development. That allocation should be distinguished from the £110m invested in the three completed schemes and does not constitute an additional construction contract awarded to Esh.
The completion provides new rented accommodation on a site that had remained without its former housing for more than a decade. Its scale also required the coordination of residential building activity with roads, drainage, public highway alterations, and external works, bringing several construction disciplines into the delivery programme.
With the final homes handed over, Esh and Thirteen have completed their three-development Middlesbrough programme. The 296 homes at Hillside Gardens bring the total to 546, while the associated infrastructure and Keith Road junction works form part of the completed £56m development. The two-year acceleration remains the contractor’s reported programme outcome, with the project now transferred from construction into occupation.
