BUILDING work on the Jurston Farm housing development in Wellington is pressing ahead with construction on a near £1 million roundabout on the A38 set to start next month.

David Lohfink, planning director for builders C G Fry, said work on the roundabout was scheduled to run from March 5 to June 5. Temporary traffic lights would be in place and the town council had been informed.

He added: “Work should have started before now but it has taken longer than we would have liked to conclude the technical approval and legal agreement.”

He said the high cost of the roundabout was largely a result of diverting services such as water and gas – and, especially, fibre optic cables.

C G Fry has outline planning permission for 650 homes at Jurston Farm with, as previously reported, about 50 homes built every year.

Mr Lohfink added: “Houses will start coming out of the ground very shortly – the show home and stuff around the roundabout is what people will see first.” He expects the first homes to go on sale early next year.

C G Fry is also on-site in Newquay in Cornwall; Chagford on Dartmoor; Chickerell, near Weymouth; and Mere, Calne and Bradford-on-Avon, all in Wiltshire. It also has two sites near Weymouth in the pipeline plus in Romsey in Hampshire and Shepton Mallet in Somerset.

Mr Lohfink said: “The market isn’t great, any housing developer will tell you that, but it’s not catastrophic. If you have a good product, there are buyers out there. There are fewer of them and they are more discerning, but lots of people have to move for whatever reason.”