A dad says he was in tears after watching an episode of DIY SOS about new build homes.
Phil Wilson runs Northstone, a housebuilding company with three sites across the North West, after being approached by Peel L&P to head up the business at the start of 2019 to provide high quality and efficient housing. Phil started out to focus on 'buildability, sustainability and efficiency', but it was during an episode of DIY SOS that he conjured an idea that could help others.
He was moved to tears by a family on the programme overhauling their house for a disabled child as it mirrored his own experience; his son Jacob was born in 1996 with severe cerebral palsy, sadly passing away when he was seven. Watching TV 20 years on, it struck Phil how lucky he was to have the finances to convert their home at the time.
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In homage to his late son, Northstone designed 'Jacob's Place' a four-bed family home that is fully accessible and features a downstairs bedroom and adjoining bathroom. Phil said he was initially reluctant to take on the job and added: "It can be a bit of an archaic, non-evolving industry, doing the stuff it was doing when I first started working 30 years ago.
"It's a successful sector, but there hasn't really been movement or true changes to reflect the way we live. I wanted to start from scratch and do something different. It was a personal thing to me. It was really difficult to see a family having their house ripped apart to just cater for their child.
"It's great people do that, but I thought why don't we try and build something that could be available quite easily in a wider market setting."
Jacob's Place debuted at Northstone's Silkash site in Bolton, but is also set to launch at the company's Ellesmere Port development this month (September 2022), as well as in Wigan. The aim is to have one home of this type on each site.
While Jacob's Place is designed specifically for those with disabilities and additional needs, Phil is also interested in new trends such as intergenerational living and how new build homes can be easily extended to cater for this.
"It started off for people with disabilities but it can work in other areas as well," he said. "People are now living longer and there's a whole thing around the cost of social care.
"People would rather have their mums and dads living with them instead of spending all their money on a care home. There are granny flats, but that's for a particularly wealthy market. We wanted to offer an extension to what was a standard house for, in effect free, for a family in need."
Today, Northstone is working on sites that will deliver 1,000 homes. "Reaction has been really positive," Phil said.
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