IN Brief:
- Work has started on the 21.6-acre Mirabelle Park development off Wyre Road in Pershore.
- The 94-home scheme reserves 40% of its properties for affordable housing under the approved planning arrangements.
- More than £870,000 in planning contributions is associated with the scheme; the housebuilding contract value has not been disclosed.
William Davis Homes has begun construction at Mirabelle Park, a 94-home scheme on 21.6 acres off Wyre Road in Pershore, Worcestershire. The Loughborough-based developer plans two- to five-bedroom homes, with affordable housing accounting for 40% of the development under its planning consent. Homes are expected to be marketed during 2027, followed by the first occupations later that year. The start of site work is a construction milestone, separate from sales launches and completed handovers.
Wychavon District Council approved the housing scheme earlier in 2026. Affordable provision accounts for about two in every five dwellings, although the reported housing mix does not allocate individual tenures to particular plots or set out a detailed delivery sequence. As groundworks and superstructures advance, plots intended for different buyers or housing providers may also have distinct inspection, legal completion and handover requirements. The developer has not supplied a plot-by-plot timetable.
More than £870,000 is attached to the development through planning contributions for local services and infrastructure. Almost £475,000 relates to Section 106 obligations, including £183,438 for off-site formal sports provision, £92,452 for education and £62,400 for primary healthcare. The balance includes Community Infrastructure Levy commitments. These amounts are planning obligations connected with the development; William Davis has not announced a construction contract value for the 94 homes.
Community Infrastructure Levy and Section 106 obligations operate alongside the construction programme rather than forming part of a single housebuilding cost. The levy supports infrastructure more broadly, while legal obligations can secure measures needed to make a specific development acceptable. How those commitments are paid and discharged will depend on their terms and applicable triggers. The announced totals establish the planned financial contribution, but do not imply that local sports, education or healthcare improvements have already been delivered.
Alongside the housing, the scheme proposes open space and measures intended to support biodiversity. The developer lists bird boxes, bat boxes and bee bricks, together with buried hibernacula and gaps to allow hedgehogs to move between gardens. Those features address different species and habitats. A hibernaculum, for example, provides a sheltered structure for wildlife, while openings through boundary fencing can preserve routes that would otherwise be interrupted by new residential plots.
The planned ecological features must be included in the individual house, boundary and landscape works if they are to function as intended. Bee bricks and nesting boxes need suitable placement in the building fabric, while openings for hedgehogs depend on connections between adjoining gardens. Planting and sheltered areas will require management after the estate is occupied. No quantified biodiversity outcome or monitoring results are available yet.
Residential construction and shared estate infrastructure must advance in compatible stages. Access roads need to accommodate delivery vehicles and trades before they become permanent residential routes, while drainage and utility connections must be available for inspection and commissioning ahead of occupation. Boundary works, planting and communal space can follow their own sequence. William Davis has not published a detailed enabling works programme, so the order in which each of these elements will be completed remains undetermined.
Two to five-bedroom housing also implies variation in plot footprints, service requirements and the amount of work involved in finishing individual properties. Foundations, superstructure, roofing, internal services and commissioning have to progress through inspection stages before legal completion and occupation. That construction sequence explains why a site can begin building in one year while the first buyers or tenants are not expected to move in until the following year, without suggesting an undisclosed programme delay.
Mirabelle Park adds to William Davis’s West Midlands development pipeline after activity at Burton Green and Warwick. At Pershore, the marketing suite and showhome have not yet opened, and the first homes are expected to be released during 2027. Published indications have differed on whether that will be early in the year or during summer, so a precise launch month remains unconfirmed. First occupations are envisaged later in 2027 as completed homes pass their final inspections and are handed over.
Across the 21.6-acre site, the remaining programme will combine house construction, inspections and utility connections with the affordable housing provision, public open space and ecological measures required by the consent. The next publicly identified milestones are the initial homes being brought to market during 2027 and the first expected occupations later that year. Neither the final completion date for all 94 properties nor a detailed plot handover sequence has been confirmed.
