Flying high at historic airfield
DEBORAH STONE meets the developer that is turning former military sites into desirable new villages perfect for 21st-century living
IT SOUNDS like something out of an Ian Fleming novel: a Bugatti racing driver buys an abandoned airfield with a friend to set up a flying school in 1939, then joins the British Ski Team in the Alps before the planned grand opening in
September. But war breaks out, the airfield is requisitioned and
RAF Thame is created.
Initially a glider school, training pilots who went on to take part in the 1944 Normandy landings, it became home to Spitfires en route to RAF airbases delivered by Air Transport Auxiliary pilots – male and female – who kept the pubs of nearby Haddenham and Thame busy.
After the war RAF Thame closed but glider pilot training continued right up until December last year at Haddenham Airfield.
Now the land is being redeveloped by housebuilder CALA Homes and its Aspen Park, still under construction, will be a village within a village of 233 three, four and five-bedroom homes a short walk from Haddenham itself and half a mile from Haddenham & Thame Parkway rail station, with trains to London Marylebone, Birmingham Snow Hill and Oxford.
House prices range from £465,950 to £819,950 (01844 319527; cala.co.uk) with Help To Buy and part exchange available.
CALA Homes is contributing £4million for the long-term improvement of local services and facilities at Haddenham and there are pubs and restaurants at Thame, five miles away, good shopping and a theatre in Aylesbury, just over six miles away, as well as the dreaming spires of Oxford 16 miles away.
The regeneration of brownfield land such as Haddenham Airfield is part of the Government’s National Planning Policy Framework, aimed at repurposing redundant land and pulling new investment into the area.
These brownfield sites usually come with an existing infrastructure of roads, public transport and on-site services such as water and electricity, making them the perfect place to create new communities.
CALA Homes is involved in regenerating several other brownfield sites with military connections, such as Princess Royal Barracks in Deepcut, near Camberley in Surrey. The first phase, the new village of Mindenhurst, will have 215 homes, with 35 per cent of them affordable housing.
The development of two, three, four and five-bedroom homes are on sale off-plan from £295,000 up to £715,000 with Help To Buy and part exchange available (01252 757439; cala.co.uk).
Eventually Mindenhurst will have 1,200 homes, a primary school, shops, offices and sports facilities, with this first phase surrounded by woodland and open spaces.
IT’S LESS than a mile from the village of Deepcut and there’s a main line railway station fewer than four miles away at Brookwood. Regular trains to London Waterloo take 35 minutes and it’s also close to the M3, for the south coast or London, and the M25.
Nearby towns such as Camberley, Frimley and Farnborough have good shopping, bars and restaurants, and there is plenty of woodland and open spaces in the Surrey countryside.
“Former military sites provide excellent opportunities for regeneration, as they are often well-connected to transport routes and other amenities but provide a blank canvas upon which new places can be created,” says Michaela Sullivan, group land manager at CALA Homes.
“We are delighted to be revitalising brownfield sites into vibrant new places, providing local communities with much-needed housing, jobs and amenities such as play spaces, footpaths and cycle paths.”
Other military sites that CALA Homes is involved with include Wellesley in Aldershot, Hampshire, and the former RAF base at
Long Marston in Warwickshire.
It will build 108 homes opposite the Grade II listed Cambridge Military Hospital, being refurbished by Grainger PLC, as part of the Wellesley masterplan of 3,850 homes.
At Long Marston which is under consideration to become a garden village, CALA has outline planning approval for 400 homes.