Developers hail ‘new dawn’ at Terry’s old factory site

The historic estate, which was central to the city’s world-famous confectionary industry before it closed in 2005, will be transformed with hundreds of new homes, shops, hotels and a business park which has already attracted interest from companies based across the country and abroad.

Two of the UK’s leading property companies, Sheffield-based Henry Boot Developments and York housebuilder David Wilson Homes, have bought the site for an undisclosed sum from GHT Developments LLP. The new owners said the site represents “an important strategic business location” while York Council’s leader James Alexander heralded the sale as a “landmark deal”.

As part of the £75m regeneration scheme 270 houses and apartments will be created on the site and it comes after the council vowed earlier this year to ensure that stalled re-development schemes in the city were brought back on track. The new owners declined to disclose how much they had paid in the property deal, but the site was bought for £26m by GHT Developments LLP, a consortium including the York-based company Grantside Ltd, in April 2006 before the property market was plunged into turmoil by the global economic crisis.

Work had begun in March last year to prepare the site for re-development but the decision was then taken to put the estate back on the market less than three weeks later.

While the 27-acre site has been under offer since January, the Yorkshire Post understands last-minute wranglings have led to the deal being delayed for several weeks.