Project builders call in receivers

Builders behind a major £16 million housing project in the centre of Shrewsbury have called in the receivers - the second company to do so in the development’s history.

Contractors at the troubled St Julian’s Friars development, Urban Solutions, confirmed this week that liquidators had been informed.

The news comes 12 months after original builders, Polony, suffered the same fate.

Shrewsbury firm Fletcher Homes has now stepped in to save the ailing development, buying it for an undisclosed fee from site owners, Thornton Baker Homes.

Thornton Baker has now left the site, unable to complete more than a third of the 91-home estate, which it bought in a major land deal in 2003 from land owner, Greenhous. Plans included the creation of a one-way system from Town Walls to English Bridge, and to unearth some previously unseen sections of the town walls.

Thornton Baker Homes, Urban Solutions (Midlands) and Polony Limited were all originally registered to the same address in Lichfield Street, Tamworth.

Clive Benfield, chairman of Fletcher Homes Shropshire, said the first phase of the 3.2 acre development, which includes apartments and town houses, was nearing completion.

But he said the development stalled “following the demise” of the site contractor.

Fletcher Homes will now complete the link road between English Bridge through St Julian’s Friars and up to Town Walls and construct the remaining 66 homes.

No-one from Thornton Baker Homes or Urban Solutions would comment on the matter.