FOUR college students are playing their part in transforming a former Burton bowling green into houses.
Land in Grange Street, which was home to St Paul’s Bowling Club for 90 years, is being turned into 15 homes.
The development is making steady progress with building work on the site about to enter its second phase.
As part of developer Trent and Dove’s ‘learn it, build it, live it’ scheme, four trainee builders currently studying at Burton and South Derbyshire College are playing their part in building the homes, which have been earmarked as a ‘self-build project’.
The three Burton students, and one from Measham, have been inducted into the scheme which offers the students the chance of temporary employment and valuable experience, as well as the chance to move into the very house that they have built.
The project aims to give the students, currently studying construction maintenance operations at the college, the incentive to play their part in a real development.
At 35, Sean Booth, from Stapenhill, is older than the average student, but is determined to take hold of the second chance that has been given to him.
He said: “Being accepted onto the scheme has given me real drive and purpose.
“I currently live in a one bedroom flat in Stapenhill, so being involved with this project will provide me with a fantastic opportunity to add to my qualifications, provide employment and ultimately a two bedroom home which I have built myself. This will allow my partner and child to move in with me so we can all live together as a family.”
The land off Grange Street was the base of St Paul’s Bowling Club until 2003 when the organisation went to the wall with the social club which used to lie on the site having since been demolished.
Such projects have been welcomed by Burton’s MP Andrew Griffiths who said Trent and Dove’s scheme had the potential to ‘completely transform’ the aspiring builders’ lives.
