Building work continues on new £34 million housing estate in Wolverhampton

The Marches, on Lakefield Road, in Wednesfield, will include 266 new houses – a mixture of two, three and four-bedroom properties. The first homes are due to open later this year.

Located just off Lichfield Road, the new development is also set to stand as a permanent tribute to the crew of a Lancaster bomber plane that crashed nearby during the Second World War, killing everyone on board.

Roads on the estate will commemorate the seven airmen who lost their lives in the disaster by naming a street after each of them.

Developer WV Living has said that once completed, the site will have 51 council houses, 17 shared ownership homes and 198 new homes available for market sale.

The roads on the site will honour the memories of Lancaster pilot Bernard Hall, flight engineer Ronald James O’Donnell, navigator Reginald Henry Smith, air bomber Victor Francis Dobell Meade, wireless operator Gordon Leonard Rabbetts and air gunners Vincent Reginald Woodburn and John Alfred Sills.

Operating out of East Kirkby, Lincolnshire, the plane came down on the evening of May 17, 1945.

Willmott Dixonis undertaking the building work.