The first major construction contract to transform the historic former Filton Airfield into a thriving new neighbourhood has been awarded to a West Country firm Vertase FLI, based in Portishead.

The historic former airfield – the birthplace of Concorde and supersonic travel – is set to become a new urban community, known as Brabazon. Vertase FLI will carry out the necessary enabling works so that construction can begin later this autumn.

The first phase of new homes at Brabazon, to be built on a parcel of land close to the Trust Ford car dealership on Hayes Way, have been designed by Stirling Prize-winning architects Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios. The architecture of the 278 new properties reflects the heritage of the site, with the rooflines at Brabazon designed to echo the profile of an airplane’s tail-fin while also maximising light for the homes’ energy-efficient solar panels.

The announcement of the first contract by YTL Developments comes almost exactly 70 years after the Brabazon – the visionary aircraft from which the new neighbourhood takes its name – made its first flight. The Brabazon first took off from Filton Airfield on 4th September 1949, in the process testing new technologies that paved the way for modern commercial aviation as we know it today. Brabazon is designed to live up to that legacy, creating a place for the next generation to live, work and thrive.

The works entail the excavation of over 18,000 cubic metres of earth, weighing over 38,000 tonnes. That’s equivalent to the weight of 300 Concordes. Vertase FLI has designed the works to be as sustainable as possible, ensuring that all of the excavated material will be reused on site.

More: First new homes expected to go on sale in late 2020 &raquo

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Work on building the first batch of new homes on the former Filton Airfield is set to begin before the end of the year after South Gloucestershire Council approved the first ‘reserved matters’ planning application to come forward for the massive 143ha (354 acre) site.

Outline permission for development of the site as a whole was granted in 2015, with the permission including 2,675 homes, 24ha (62 acres) of employment land, three new schools, recreational areas and community facilities, a doctors’ surgery, a new railway station and a dedicated MetroBus route.

The dedicated MetroBus lanes within the development will form part of the Cribbs Patchway MetroBus Extension linking The Mall with Bristol Parkway Station via Gipsy Patch Lane.

YTL Developments, which acquired the Filton Airfield site from BAE Systems in 2015, is now marketing the development under the ‘Brabazon’ brand name, after an aircraft designed by the Bristol Aeroplane Company.

The recently approved reserved matters application, for 278 homes, relates to a parcel of land on the northern boundary of the outline site, close to Hayes Way and just west of the new Aerospace Bristol museum. Access will be from Blenheim Roundabout (near the Trust Ford dealership), and later also from Brabazon Roundabout (near the Wessex Garages dealership) with a U-shaped road eventually being formed between the two roundabouts.

The 278 properties which have received approval consist of two six-storey apartment blocks and one 7-storey apartment block, together providing 151 dwellings, along with 127 two- to four-bedroom homes of either two or three storeys.

Forty-four (15 percent) of the homes in this first phase will be provided as affordable housing. Across the site as a whole, the developer is required to provide 17 percent affordable housing.

More: "… a highly sustainable new residential quarter"

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