Once completed, Newcastle Great Park will be the largest mixed development in the North-East, costing more than £1bn, creating thousands of jobs and becoming home to about 2,500 people. Project director Peter Jordan talks to Deputy Business Editor Kate Bowman about the scheme.

LESS than a year ago, developers estimated that Newcastle Great Park (NGP) would cost £800m. Now the figure stands between £1bn and £1.5bn and the potential for the site has grown enormously.

With talk of a private hospital, care home, eye clinic, hotel, leisure club, town centre with pedestrian area, shops, pubs, library, two schools, a business park, bus links and cycle routes, there are not many options that have not already been pencilled in for the grand scheme.

The development, which lies on a 1,200-acre greenfield site three miles north-west of Newcastle, is the work of the NGP Consortium, which is made up by Persimmon Homes, Taylor Woodrow Developments, Newcastle City Council and the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment.

Persimmon regional project director Peter Jordan said the NGP had come on in leaps and bounds since the site was outlined for residential and commercial development in 1998.

He said: "Newcastle Great Park is going to be a regional flagship site, addressing the region's housing disparities, accelerating business development and making Newcastle itself a more sustainable community."

The development will be in four phases, with the first, of about 700 houses on the east side of the park, nearly complete.

With 2,500 homes expected to be built on the site by 2018, units will vary from small flats and student accommodation to starter houses, detached family homes and larger, more luxurious developments.

"The North-East has a huge disparity in its housing stock, with many cities having a large number of terraced houses and relatively few three or four-bedroomed family homes," said Mr Jordan.

"Only seven per cent of Newcastle's housing is detached, compared to between 15 and 20 per cent in places like Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham and even London. The NGP aims to rebalance the city's housing stock."

The second phase of work includes the development of the 200-acre business park, which will sit next to the already operational £60m headquarters of software company Sage.

The consortium said it would attract high-class companies and create about 10,000 direct jobs.

Mr Jordan said the site would become home to regional, national and international companies, with units ranging from 10,000sq ft to 500,000sq ft.

The master plan for the park has already been approved and planning permission for the first two buildings is being considered by the council in the coming weeks.

The NGP's health and leisure quarter and neighbourhood centre is also being built during the next four years and, without naming names, Mr Jordan has hinted at a popular leisure and hotel group interested in the site.

The neighbourhood centre will become the heart of the NGP, with shops, restaurants and pubs as well as a state school and diocese-funded primary school, creche, community centre, library and skateboard park.

The health and leisure quarter will include a private hospital with associated clinics and care facilities, hotel and leisure club.

Phase three and four will include the final development of the west side of the park, with the final houses and last stage of the business park expected to be completed by 2018.

Hundreds of acres will also be protected and landscaped, with eight miles of walkways through meadow and parkland, bridleways, wetland and native woodland areas.

Mr Jordan said: "We want to create a place where people can live and work, with its own community services. A place that has facilities there for everyone, so they don't need to leave the Great Park and travel elsewhere on a day-to-day basis."

Mr Jordan was a planning consultant before joining solicitors Ward Hadaway seven years ago to work on the project.

He said: "We also want it to be a place that people enjoy - an exciting park with a peaceful, country setting, which has easy access to the city and beyond."

NPG is just off the A1, ten minutes from Newcastle city centre and close to Newcastle International Airport.

Arriva buses already operate a service to NGP, but once the park is completed, Mr Jordan expects there to be a number of bus routes throughout the site, as well as a park-and-ride system.

A Metro link to Newcastle city centre was considered, but at a cost of at least £50m the rail service, which would have to branch off the main line or loop around the airport and through the NGP, was thought too expensive and impractical.