Deal sealed for more homes at Harworth pit site

Plans to build hundreds of new homes on the site of the former Harworth Colliery have taken another step forward.
Harworth Colliery, which closed in 2006. (PHOTO BY: Richard Croft)Harworth Colliery, which closed in 2006. (PHOTO BY: Richard Croft)
Harworth Colliery, which closed in 2006. (PHOTO BY: Richard Croft)

Award-winning housebuilder Jones Homes has announced that it has acquired 5.95 acres of land from the private regeneration company, Harworth Group.

A total of 71 homes will now be built in the second phase of a development to be known as Simpson Park after the legendary former world road-race champion cyclist Tom Simpson, who lived in Harworth.

Simpson was also a bronze medallist at the 1956 Olympic Games and was BBC TV Sports Personality of the Year in 1965, but died at the age of 29 after coallpsing during the 1967 Tour de France.

Jones Homes’s investment is part of Harworth Group’s wider plans to regenerate the 136-acre former colliery site over the next 15 years with 1,500 homes and community facilities.

The purchase also follows the success of the housebuilder’s first residential development in Harworth, at Woodland Grange, where 118 new homes have been built and sold over the last three years.

David Ruffey, regional director at Jones Homes, said: “We are delighted to be back in Harworth, and we are confident the range of well-designed properties in this superb development will be in high demand.”

Ed Catchpole, development manager at Harworth Group, said: “Jones Homes did an excellent job at Woodland Grange, which has greatly contributed to the ongoing regeneration of the village, and so we are delighted that they have bought this site’s second phase.”

As part of the deal, Jones Homes will be making a contribution of £169,264 towards the provision of education for residents who move into the new homes.

Harworth Colliery, which opened in 1913, was once a thriving pit. When it was mothballed in 2006, it brought to an end 86 years of coal mining in Bassetlaw.