With over 85 years’ experience developing beautiful family homes, Miller Homes is dedicated to providing potential occupiers with properties that have been constructed using the highest quality building materials.
This commitment has been showcased throughout its latest development, situated in the idyllic Cotswolds countryside, with Forticrete’s high quality walling stone specified to reflect the site’s rural setting.
Due to the location of the Highfields development, which is just a short distance from HRH the Prince of Wales’ Highgrove House, emulating the visual appeal of traditional Cotswold Stone was a leading consideration throughout the design stages.
As a result, Forticrete was specified to supply 24,779 square metres of walling stone in a Cottage Cotswold Village finish from its popular Shearstone range. The reconstituted stone offers significant cost efficiencies over natural materials, without compromising on the overall desired look of the 250 multi-phase development.
The Shearstone Walling range was chosen due to its through-colour construction and surface finish blends, which authentically replicate the texture and visual appearance of the natural stone of Cotswolds.
As the reconstituted walling stone resembles the natural stone of Tetbury in texture, coverage and thermal connectivity, it offered Miller Homes impressive sustainability and performance benefits. The walling stone also provides future homeowners with a robust and durable exterior that requires minimal ongoing maintenance.
David Gray, Regional Buyer for Miller Homes, said: “We specified Forticrete’s Shearstone Walling Stone for this development for a number of reasons. Firstly, the consistency and quality of the product in regards to colour and finish were second to none on the market. The stunning visual appeal that this creates helped us to achieve our overriding goal, which was to provide customers with the utmost confidence and satisfaction from the very first time they view the development.
“The Cottage Cotswold Village stone was specifically chosen due to its shading and surface finish blends, which fit effortlessly alongside the older properties adjacent to the site. This, coupled with its price comparison to natural stone, makes it an attractive solution without compromising on the overall look we were trying to create.”
As one of Forticrete’s latest manufacturing advancements, Shearstone Walling provides developers with reconstituted alternatives that are built upon the form of natural materials. Constructed of carefully selected blends of locally sourced naturally aggregates and pigments, which are combined with sand, cement and stones, the building material guarantees unrivaled consistency and quality.
For professionals working to tight time scales, the manufacturing process for reconstituted stone enables a consistent manufacturing volume, meaning that with early engagement between manufacturers and housebuilders, most projects can be supplied without issue, compared to quarried natural stone, which may have significantly longer lead times due to poor weather impacting extraction.
This, combined with the unrivalled performance, sustainability and aesthetic benefits, provides an affordable, yet effective, alternative to natural stone that sets the standard for a new generation of traditionally inspired contemporary properties that enable developers to achieve significantly higher margins.
David concluded: “The availability of product was also another critical factor, and after working with Forticrete nationally for many years, particularly with its cast stone solutions, the company has proved to be a consistent and reliable supply chain partner.
“They’ve consistently provided high performance and quality solutions, backed up with first class service. This is hugely important when delivering projects on time, to a high quality and within budgets, so were grateful to Forticrete for helping us to achieve this at Highfields.”
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Media contact
Rebecca Morpeth Spayne,
Editor, Showhome Magazine
Tel: +44 (0) 1622 823 922
Email: [email protected]
