A £175m city centre regeneration scheme in Derby has reached completion, with developer Wavensmere Homes finishing the last phase of the Nightingale Quarter project.
The 18.5-acre site, on the former Derbyshire Royal Infirmary estate, has been under construction for six years. It now comprises 925 new homes: 125 houses and eight apartment blocks providing a total of 800 apartments.
The final block, Walton House, is a five-storey building with 103 one- and two-bedroom apartments for rent. Residents are due to move in from November. The units are being marketed and managed by Derby estate agency Ashley Adams. Each home is being handed over fully furnished by Project Furniture Residential. The specification includes solar PV panels with battery storage, 7kW electric vehicle chargers, and rapid charge bays. The developer is positioning those features as part of the scheme’s low-carbon offer to occupiers.
Around £1m has been spent on new public realm and shared amenities. The finished scheme includes landscaped boulevards, a dedicated children’s play area, an outdoor gym, a running track that loops the development, a residents’ gym, a co-working space, and a community allotment set up with Down to Earth Derby, residents, and school pupils.
A life-size bronze fallow deer sculpture has been installed on site as a permanent feature. British wildlife sculptor Hamish Mackie created the piece, which has been presented as a gift to the city. The deer is intended as a reference to the city’s name and its historic association with deer.
Two 19th-century “pepperpot” buildings from the former Florence Nightingale-designed hospital have been retained and restored. They now act as heritage markers along London Road, opposite Derbion shopping centre, providing a visible link to the site’s original use.
With Walton House now delivered, Wavensmere Homes has effectively closed out its build programme at Nightingale Quarter and turned the site from a long-term construction project into a live residential location feeding directly into Derby’s central economy.
