New owner for airfield homes land (From Tewkesbury Admag)

New owner for airfield homes land

HOUSEHOLDERS in Upper Rissington are waiting to find out how a £75 million corporate takeover will affect them.

They say they had no warning that the Gladedale Group was taking over Country and Metropolitan Homes, which built the village on the site of a former Royal Air Force base.

Country and Metropolitan bought RAF Little Rissington in 1996 and has since created more than 300 homes, a shop, social club and village hall. It also built a business park, which now has nearly 30 tenants occupying about 70 per cent of the space.

In the late 1990s Upper Rissington villagers signed covenants to each pay the company up to £200 annually for service infrastructure, sewage plant maintenance and landscaping.

The village's acting parish clerk Nigel Adams said the takeover was announced at this month's annual parish meeting. The parish council is now planning to meet representatives of Gladedale to discuss outstanding issues, such as sewage provision, which has been the subject of dispute in the past.

"Hopefully this will be a new start and a positive opportunity of moving things forward," he said.

Ex-parish clerk Emanda Taylor said she had heard about the takeover from a neighbour. "Most people just feel uninformed. I would have gone to the parish meeting but I didn't know it was on."

Country and Metropolitan spokeswoman Jean Atkins said the takeover had been planned for months. "I don't think it's going to affect the village because, obviously, we will still go under the Country and Metropolitan name.

"We've been taken over by the Gladedale Group, a company that is a lot bigger with a lot more money."