Work Progresses at Pace at Wavensmere’s £50m Arkle Court Scheme in Cheltenham

Wavensmere Homes and Montane Partners are nine months into the 30-month programme to redevelop the North Place surface car park, located within Cheltenham’s Central Conservation Area.

The £50m Arkle Court development will comprise 147 houses and apartments, designed to sensitively enhance the street scene, including Grade II* listed St Margaret’s Terrace.

50 construction professionals are working on site to deliver the project, with the first home handovers scheduled for summer 2026. The first terrace of houses will have roofs installed before the end of the year. Over £14m has already been invested on land assembly and remediation, site enabling and groundworks.

Craig Gee, construction director of Wavensmere Homes, said: “We are immensely proud of the rapid progress our specialist groundworks contractors have made since work started last February. The £14m we have spent so far has created an investment boost for the Regency Town and jobs for local people.

“It’s exciting to see the footings of the first houses at Arkle Court in place, especially with all the remediation work we’ve carried out below the ground. This complex brownfield regeneration project is transforming the site of the former Black & White’s Coach Station, which has been underutilised as a surface car park for many years. We’re pleased to be continuing the renaissance of Cheltenham’s St Paul’s area and delivering much-needed new homes.”

Arkle Court has been designed by nationally acclaimed architects Glancy Nicholls to complement the town’s Regency architecture and create a sustainable new community in the heart of the town centre. The development is being delivered sequentially from the eastern boundary with North Place, running anti-clockwise to improve the site frontage.

Extending to over 3.5-acres, Arkle Court will include multiple areas of high quality landscaped open space, with the opportunity for a public art installation to be created as part of the Cheltenham Paint Festival. Vehicular, pedestrian and cycle access is from North Place, less than half a mile from the town centre’s historic core.

The redevelopment will connect Pittville Park on the one side, through North Place, to the thriving Brewery Quarter, the Lower High Street Poundland site – which will see a mixed-use redevelopment – through to the cyber-tech Hub MX and Minster Gardens. Enhanced connectivity and walkability will cut down travel times, increase opportunities and health and wellbeing, reduce isolation, and drive economic growth. 

The designs for Arkle Court are gas-free with a target A-rated energy performance for the townhouses and B for the apartments. Wavensmere Homes’ specification of local materials is helping to reduce carbon footprint, along with an array of energy saving and generating technology, including air sourced heat pumps, solar PV panels and centralised mechanical ventilation heat recovery systems. Each house will also benefit from dedicated parking which will be served by 7kW EV car chargers.

Wavensmere Homes is constructing an additional six major urban regeneration schemes, located in central Birmingham, Derbyshire, Ipswich, and Wolverhampton. The Birmingham-headquartered housebuilder has around 3,500 new homes either under construction or in planning.

Montane Partners is actively investing in property throughout the UK, across the residential, retail, leisure and hotel sectors. 

To view the plans for Arkle Court, visit: www.arklecourt.co.uk/