Cammell Laird Foundry

A detailed History of the Cammell Laird Penistone Works is available to those interested at:

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Cammell Laird - The Penistone Archive

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Yorkshire Land Limited acquired the 14 Acre derelict site in 1994 and immediately set about its regeneration for residential development.

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Due to the nature of the site's historical use, it's regeneration was arduous to say the least.  Over 10 metres of contaminated ground had to be removed, screened and re-compacted over the entire site area to prepare it to a sufficient standard for residential development.  These works alone took 3 years to complete due to the hard-going nature of the ground, with the company encountering steel slag and reinforced concrete foundations on a daily basis during the first year of works, often jamming the crushers and screens and damaging the heavy machinery which was brought in to do the job, causing costly delays.

 

On one occasion, an officer of Barnsley Council commented at an on site meeting, whilst looking across the site from the raised embankment of the adjacent former Woodhead Railway Line that "what Yorkshire Land are undertaking as a small local company is just unbelievable; it would be a mammoth undertaking even for the worldwide contractor, Wimpey"

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Following completion of the preparation of the site for development, Yorkshire Land agreed a deal with David Wilson Homes to sell the site for residential development (a development which is today known locally as Greenacres) which was at that time only David Wilson Homes' second development in the Penistone area, with the market seemingly untapped, although proving successful with the company going on to develop a strong relationship with Yorkshire Land, purchasing several more sites from the company for new homes in the area over a period of several years.

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For its work on this development, Yorkshire Land Limited was presented with an award from the Town Mayor of Penistone, Cllr Maureen Harrison, acknowledging with gratitude the valuable contribution made by the company towards the Town and its Inhabitants in regenerating the site, which up until that point, had lain dormant and derelict as an eyesore in the local landscape for many years.