Construction begins on new 52 home development between Worcester and Malvern
FIFTY-TWO new homes are now being built in a village between Worcester and Malvern almost nine months after they were approved.
Lioncourt Homes has started work on the new housing development known as The Hamlet.
The development sits off the A4103 and will be made up of a variety of detached, semi-detached and terraced homes with two, three, four, or five bedrooms.
Colin Cole, CEO of Lioncourt Homes, said: "We are proud to have started work on this important development for Leigh Sinton, where our investment into the community and supporting the local economy through strong partnerships is just as significant as delivering high-quality homes.
"The Hamlet is ideally located close to the village centre and will provide much-needed new housing for first-time buyers, families, commuters, downsizers and more, all while complementing the area and its unique character."
Malvern Hills District Council approved the development in September 2024 on a 3.3-hectare plot of 'relatively flat agricultural land'.
The development consists of 37 homes which will be available on the open market, while 15 are earmarked as affordable homes through social rent and shared ownership.
£350,000 will be contributed to the local area thanks to Section 106 funding, which mitigates the negative impacts new developments can have on local infrastructure.
More: David Beckham wins neighbour battle over £6m Cotswolds estate plans
More: The 'scenic' Worcestershire postcode named among Britain's most expensive
Much of this will finance education and school transport; however, funding will also cover community transport, NHS provisions, and public spaces, which will see surrounding areas of Leigh Sinton converted into sports and recreational facilities, children's play areas, parks, gardens, allotments, and cemeteries.
Lioncourt Homes is also responsible for the construction of new developments in other Worcestershire villages, including The Green, Rushwick, and Martley Fields, Martley.
Mr Cole added: "This marks another step in our journey as a Worcestershire homebuilder delivering on quality, affordability, sustainability, and more for local people."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Associated Press
35 minutes ago
- Associated Press
The Panel Company Going Green for the Planet Lawcris Levels Up Their Sustainability Practices
LEEDS, GB / ACCESS Newswire / June 21, 2025 / For companies across the globe, sustainability practices are increasing in importance, with global warming becoming an ever looming reality. For West Yorkshire-based panels company Lawcris, sustainability has been on their radar for years. With a policy that continues to develop their contribution to reducing carbon emissions, reducing waste and sourcing timber and non-timber related products responsibly, Lawcris have also introduced solar panels to their main site. The Power of Sunshine With the UK aiming to reach net zero emissions by 2050, a greater proportion of the grid's energy now comes from renewable sources rather than fossil fuels. Lawcris' commitment to producing renewable energy to be used and also given back to the grid cements their status as a company who is forward thinking about sustainability. 'Lawcris has made significant progress over recent years to improve the sustainability element of the business. Solar Panels support our Grid supply of electricity which is already zero carbon, and we have also accredited to ISO 14001 standard for our overall environmental management. We will continue to develop our environmental approach in support of a Net Zero target and to ensure that we are seen by all our stakeholders as being proactive in this area.' Lauren Barker, Marketing Manager Innovating Green Solutions in Business This is far from Lawcris' first rodeo with sustainability, and they are a force dedicated to providing innovative solutions for sustainability under their own roof. Currently, they have a biomass heating facility installed at their site in Leeds, less than 1% of their waste going to landfill, as well as promoting green alternative transport services to their staff. If you want to learn more about how Lawcris are pioneering sustainability in the panels industry, you can visit About Lawcris Established in 1982 in Wakefield, England by Chris Hopton and Simon Hall, Lawcris has vastly outgrown its humble beginnings. Focused on supplying the best quality panels, the business operates to the highest standards as one of the biggest decorative panel suppliers in the UK. Media Contact Organization: Lawcris Contact Person Name: Matthew Hines Website: Email: [email protected] Contact Number: +441132177177 Address: Knowsthorpe Gate, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS9 0NP City: Leeds Country: United Kingdom SOURCE: Lawcris press release
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Warren Buffett's Top 7 Money Mistakes (And What He Learned From Them)
Warren Buffett didn't build his more than $100 billion fortune by being perfect. In fact, the Oracle of Omaha has been surprisingly candid about his biggest financial flubs over the decades. The good news is his mistakes offer valuable lessons for anyone trying to build real, sustainable wealth. Plus, they prove that even legendary investors are just humans who get it wrong sometimes. Welcome to the club! Find Out: Read Next: Here are Buffett's top money mistakes and, more importantly, what he learned from them. Buffett's investment in U.K. grocer Tesco shows how hesitation can turn small problems into major losses. Berkshire owned 415 million shares by 2012, but when concerns about management surfaced, Buffett sold only part of his position for a $43 million profit. When Tesco later overstated profits and shares collapsed, his delayed action cost Berkshire $444 million in after-tax losses. 'An attentive investor, I'm embarrassed to report, would have sold Tesco shares earlier. I made a big mistake with this investment by dawdling,' Buffett said. Speed matters in damage control. When red flags are abundant, sometimes quick decisive action means you avert a financial disaster. Learn More: Believe it or not, Buffett has called Berkshire Hathaway 'the dumbest stock I ever bought.' He purchased what was, at the time, a failing textile company because he felt insulted during a sale negotiation. Instead of walking away from Berkshire Hathaway as planned, his wounded pride led him to buy the entire business and fire the previous owner. The financial cost was enormous. Buffett said his holding company would be 'worth twice as much as it is now' if he'd stuck to his original plan of investing in insurance companies instead. This single emotional reaction cost him decades of better returns. The takeaway is clear: Never let personal feelings influence money decisions. When you feel personally slighted in a financial deal, that's exactly when you need to step back, take a breath and think logically. In 1993, Buffett thought Dexter Shoes had lasting competitive advantages that would protect its profits. Within a few years, those advantages evaporated and the company became worthless. Buffett explained: 'What I had assessed as a durable competitive advantage vanished within a few years.' This loss taught him that 'a truly great business must have an enduring 'moat' that protects excellent returns on invested capital.' Companies need permanent moats — like unbeatable brands, exclusive technology or cost advantages — that competitors can't easily copy. Without sustainable protection, any successful business will eventually attract competitors who'll drive profits to zero. The key is finding businesses whose advantages will last decades, not just a few good years. This mistake still haunts Buffett. Despite owning Geico insurance, which spent millions on Google advertising, he completely missed the search giant's investment potential. He had firsthand evidence of Google's business model working but failed to connect the dots. 'I made the mistake in not being able to come to a conclusion where I really felt that at the present prices, the prospects were far better than the prices indicated,' Buffett admitted. His reluctance to venture beyond familiar territory cost him one of the greatest investment opportunities in history. The lesson here is about missed opportunities. Sometimes the best investments are hiding in plain sight, but we ignore them because they seem too complicated or unfamiliar. Buffett's $9 billion acquisition of Lubrizol Corporation became an issue when it emerged that David Sokol, a Berkshire executive who recommended the deal, secretly owned stock in the company. Sokol made $3 million from the transaction without disclosing his conflict of interest. The oversight violated insider-trading rules and hurt Berkshire's reputation. At the 2011 annual meeting, Buffett said he should have asked better, more direct questions about Sokol's involvement. The lesson? Trust but verify, especially when large sums are involved. Even with people you've worked with (or simply known) for years, asking uncomfortable questions can prevent you from making mistakes. When crude oil hit $100+ per barrel in 2008, Buffett jumped into ConocoPhillips stock expecting energy prices to keep climbing. Instead, he bought at the peak and watched the investment lose billions as oil crashed. This demonstrates how even smart investors can get caught up in market excitement. 'When investing, pessimism is your friend, euphoria the enemy,' Buffett has said. When everyone is optimistic about a sector, prices often reflect that optimism, leaving little room for profit. Buffett learned that great companies can still be terrible investments if you pay the wrong price. Market euphoria creates expensive stocks, while pessimism creates bargains. The best time to buy is when others are selling, not when everyone else is buying too. U.S. Air's impressive revenue numbers looked very attractive in 1989, so Buffett bought preferred shares. Bad news for Buffett, those revenues came with a hidden cost. Airlines need constant capital to grow, buying new planes and expanding routes, leaving little for shareholders. By the time the airline achieved meaningful profits, debt payments ate up most of the returns. The company couldn't even pay dividends on Buffett's preferred stock. He got lucky selling at a profit later, but knew it was pure chance. This taught him to distinguish between real growth and expensive growth. As Buffett said, 'Investors have poured money into a bottomless pit, attracted by growth when they should have been repelled by it.' Some businesses need to spend huge amounts just to increase sales, leaving shareholders with nothing. The lesson is: If it looks too good to be true, it just might be. What makes Buffett extraordinary isn't his perfect track record, it's his willingness to admit errors publicly and extract valuable lessons from them. Each mistake became a teaching moment that improved his future decisions. His Google miss made him more open to technology investments, eventually leading to major positions in Apple. His ConocoPhillips overpayment reinforced his discipline about buying only at attractive prices. His Dexter Shoes loss sharpened his focus on truly durable competitive advantages. The real wisdom isn't avoiding all mistakes. Unfortunately, that's impossible. It's learning from failures quickly and adjusting your approach. Buffett's biggest errors became steppingstones to better investing, not permanent setbacks. For the rest of us, it's a lesson in endurance. More From GOBankingRates 3 Luxury SUVs That Will Have Massive Price Drops in Summer 2025 10 Used Cars That Will Last Longer Than an Average New Vehicle 8 Common Mistakes Retirees Make With Their Social Security Checks This article originally appeared on Warren Buffett's Top 7 Money Mistakes (And What He Learned From Them) Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
One of New York City's last women's-only residences finds a new home in Brooklyn
Just in time for intern season, one of the last short-term residences for New York City women has returned. The Webster Apartments, a century-old nonprofit dedicated to housing female students, interns, and working women, reopened in a new Downtown Brooklyn location in May, two years after selling its aging building on the west side of Manhattan. The reopening marks a return to the Webster's roots and commitment to a boarding house style of housing that proliferated in New York in the early 20th century but has all but disappeared. It offers a relatively affordable option for students and professionals as the city continues to deal with a deep housing shortage that's left more than half of households rent-burdened. By subscribing, you are agreeing to Yahoo's Terms and Privacy Policy At the Webster, women can stay for as little as four weeks or as long as five years. Monthly rates start at $2,000 for a shared room and $2,800 for a studio, with discounts available for early signees. There's space for about 150 women. On average, studios elsewhere in the neighborhood rent for $3,540, according to Rent Hop, or $3,965 a few subway stops away on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Read more: 12 types of popular houses for renters and buyers 'We're really trying to make it feel like a home,' said Tara Scott, who oversees admissions and marketing. 'I think we're getting there.' Women-only residences began springing up in New York in the early 1900s in response to the manufacturing boom, which created new demand for labor and made it more common for women to take jobs outside the home. But even as jobs for women became available, it was still considered somewhat scandalous for young, unmarried women to live alone in the city. Many also struggled to afford to do so on meager wages. The Webster opened in 1923 after Macy's executive Charles Webster and his brother donated money to establish a nonprofit residence for working women. The original location, at 419 West 34th St., was just a half-mile west of the flagship Macy's in Herald Square, where many of the Webster's first residents worked as 'shop girls.' 'Having been engaged for many years in the business known as a department store in the City of New York, and having employed a large number of unmarried women in that business, I have realized that the domestic environments of many of them are not conducive to their morals or health, and I have concluded to endeavor to improve the condition of some of them by giving them the opportunity to live in clean, well-ventilated, comfortable, and attractive apartments, with good moral surroundings,' Charles Webster, who died in 1916, wrote in his will, where he outlined his vision for the apartments. The nonprofit status meant rent was subsidized — women paid on a sliding scale based on their income — in a central Manhattan location. Rent also covered two hot meals a day and access to a rooftop terrace, library, and 'beau parlors' for entertaining male guests, who were forbidden past the first floor. The Webster wasn't the most famous women-only residence in its heyday. That honor belongs to The Barbizon Hotel, which was immortalized by one-time tenant Sylvia Plath in 'The Bell Jar' (in the book, it was called The Amazon), and whose list of other famous former residents includes Liza Minnelli, Grace Kelly, Farah Fawcett, Nancy Reagan, and Joan Didion. But while the Barbizon fell on hard times in the 1970s, later went co-ed, and closed in 2005 to be converted into condos, the Webster has remained, along with a handful of other women's residences, most of which are affiliated with religious orders. 'A haven' for working women Webster residents spanning multiple generations have fond memories of the space, with many praising it for helping them get established in New York. Regina Baumgärtner lived in the Webster in the 1980s after arriving from Germany on a work-study program. She recalls getting the chance to befriend people from all over the world, even though their cultures sometimes clashed. 'We girls from Europe had been sticking together, and then the Americans came to it and it changed the energy quite a lot,' said Baumgärtner, who now lives in Berlin. 'They took us to a lot of events, and we were very surprised about this openness and friendliness and trusting everybody.' A museum-loving Irish friend introduced Baumgärtner to some of the city's best cultural institutions, and she saw other parts of the country when she accompanied other pals on visits home to Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston. Once, at breakfast, a tall American told Baumgärtner that she was shocked by her petite size, because she thought all Germans were 'so big.' 'I never forgot stuff like that,' Baumgärtner said. 'I think it helped to understand different cultures, and I think it's still a way of living in peace together.' Decades later, she remains close friends with Debbie Smith, who lived in the Webster at the same time as she was beginning her career in occupational therapy. In their free time, they'd hit nightlife hotspots like Studio 54 and Limelight, sunbathe on the roof deck, or pile into community rooms to watch television. 'It was a haven,' said Smith, of Greenville, S.C. 'It was this full experience to live in Manhattan, plunked in this gorgeous building.' By the 1980s, the no-men upstairs policy was fairly unpopular. Once, a pizza deliveryman made it to the fifth floor by walking past the building's elderly security guard, who had fallen asleep. The successful infiltration sent tongues wagging for weeks, Baumgärtner recalled. Two decades earlier, Maria Keenan said she didn't have a problem with the rules. She lived at the Webster from 1966 to 1967 while working as a bilingual secretary for tobacco giant Phillip Morris International. 'I was a Catholic girl,' Keenan said, by way of explanation. Young and still finding her footing in New York after moving from Chile in 1965 when she was 18, she appreciated that some of the building's older residents kept an eye out for violations. 'It felt good,' said Keenan, who now lives in Walnut Creek, Calif. 'Somebody was looking after me.' She frequented the roof with friends she made in the building, although in those days, sunbathing too long was risky. Exhaust from vehicles waiting to enter the nearby Lincoln Tunnel would leave them covered in soot, Keenan recalled. Modern realities By the 2010s, the nearly 400-room original building was becoming increasingly hard to maintain and out of step with the realities of modern living. Initially, the Webster's board planned to sell the space and construct a new one elsewhere on its oversized lot. But the onset of the pandemic complicated those plans. Instead, the board nixed the construction and opted to sell to another student housing nonprofit for over $50 million. After temporarily taking over a floor of a co-ed student housing complex across town, it began shopping for a new permanent home. 'We looked at a lot of hotels and a lot of different co-living buildings,' Scott said. 'It was sort of hard to find a building that fits the bill and allows us to continue to fulfill our mission as laid out by the original bequest of the Webster brothers.' Read more: Should you rent or buy a home? The new building is a 20-story, 128-room former hotel in Downtown Brooklyn, which Webster spent a year renovating and redecorating with an emphasis on blond wood and soft pink. Given former residents' love of the old location, finding a new space with a roof deck was a priority. The new building also offers a gym and free laundry facilities, but no kitchen. Instead, residents receive $100 a week in credits they can redeem for food delivery. Gone, too, is the prohibition against men upstairs. Scott said the rule lingered as long as it did in part to protect the privacy of women in the old building, who shared communal dorm-style bathrooms. The new rooms all have private bathrooms, and in surveys and focus groups, many women suggested relaxing the policy. 'The world has changed a lot since some of those policies were put in place,' Scott said. 'The way that women were seen at that time was very different.' The sliding-scale rent model was also eliminated after it became increasingly hard to manage as wages in many, but not all, industries rose dramatically in the aftermath of the pandemic. The new location sits in a busy, transit-dense neighborhood that serves as the borough's commercial and civic hub. It's home to Brooklyn Borough Hall and a hulking federal courthouse. Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn's main artery, runs through the neighborhood, as does the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Though Downtown Brooklyn rarely lands on lists of iconic New York neighborhoods, high-rise residential construction projects have proliferated in recent years, adding thousands of new apartments, a Trader Joe's, a food hall, and a Lidl grocery store. The median rent in the neighborhood is $4,400, while the Webster's largest one-bedroom option tops out at $3,625. A subway ride to Midtown Manhattan takes about 20 minutes. So far, feedback on the new location has been good, especially from international applicants, Scott said. 'Brooklyn is seen as like, the hot spot, and a place where people want to be. We've received such a welcoming response from everyone hearing that we're here.' Claire Boston is a Senior Reporter for Yahoo Finance covering housing, mortgages, and home insurance. Sign up for the Mind Your Money newsletter Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
