New details and first look at 'Preston's poshest houses' on site of Grade II-listed orphanage site

New details of a residential development inside the grounds of a Preston heritage site have been announced.

In November 2022, Preston Council approved controversial plans for the development in the grounds of the Grade II-listed former Harris Park Orphanage off Garstang Road. The news was a bitter blow to the Friends of Harris Park group, which has campaigned to preserve the orphanage by repurposing it and ensuring it has a sustainable future. Previous suggestions have included turning it into a wedding venue, heritage attraction and cottage museum. Click here to read more on why the scheme was controversial

Now developers have released a new artist's impression of what the development will look like, and they say that construction work is expected to get underway later this year, creating dozens of new construction and supply chain jobs.

What will it be like?

Led by Eden Grove Investment Properties Ltd, and supported by planning and development consultancy Lichfields, there will be 37 new dwellings overall, 14 of which will be build on a redundant cricket pitch on which ex-England star Freddie Flintoff practised as a youngster.

The regeneration scheme will also see the conversion of the chapel, school and master’s house into three residential townhouses, including installation of a first-floor mezzanine in the chapel. Nine residential apartments will complete the transformation of the former Clayton Hall while nine further historic buildings will be refurbished and converted for residential use, including extensions to two of the former villas.

It is expected that the site will be gated and members of the public will not have access to the grounds.

When the plans were approved, Coun David Borrow told the Post that the committee was frustrated by the viability calculations, meaning there would not be a contribution to improving the local infrastructure. He said: “These are going to be huge houses, in a gated community…and there’s not a contribution at all towards affordable housing or to school places.

“When you think [that you could have a development] of 50 semi-detached houses and make enough profit to pay for school places and affordable housing - and [yet] what will end up being one of the poshest developments in the city can’t make a contribution at all, it just seems so wrong."

History

Currently vacant, the Harris Orphanage opened in 1888 and cared for more than 2,200 youngsters over the course of the almost 100 years it operated. It was born out of a bequest from the will of the Preston philanthropist and lawyer Edmund Harris, who was also the principal benefactor of the Harris Museum and the Harris Institute, which later became Preston Polytechnic and then UCLan.

A spokesman for the developers said: "Transforming the property into residential accommodation is part of a robust heritage and planning project that planners and developers see as providing a welcome addition to local housing provision and important regeneration of local heritage."

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