Children’s artwork is showcased at new housing development

Artwork by youngsters from a village primary school is taking pride of place at the entrance to a new £5.6 million housing development in Flintshire.

That’s thanks to a partnership between Wales & West Housing and award-winning builders Anwyl Construction who are building 46 new houses and 12 apartments for them at Glan y Don, Greenfield.

Ewloe-based Anwyl teamed up with their client, Wales & West Housing, to organise an art competition for the pupils of Ysgol Glan Aber, a school close to the construction site and they were so impressed with the standard of the entries that they decided to showcase them.

They have created a special sign at the site which displays all the children’s paintings and their names and when the project is completed at the end of the year they will present it to the school.

In the meantime some of the pupils and headmaster Paul Noon paid a visit to the site to inspect the sign and for the competition winners to receive their prizes.

One of the judges for the competition was Ann-Marie Rastin, a WWH housing officer, who said: “We were very impressed with the entries, they were absolutely beautiful pictures with fantastic detail and it was very hard to pick a winner.

WALES AND WEST HOUSING… Pupils from Ysgol Glan Aber produced some colourful posters about the area which are on display on an information board at the bottom of the new Glan Y Don Site, Greenfield. Some of the artwork on display

Doing the honours for Anwyl Construction, was Site Manager Lee Hildebrandt who said: “Thank you to all the pupils for their efforts, they’re fantastic.

“We thought the standard of the work was so good that we wanted to commemorate it and so we have put the names up of everyone who took part in this and when the development is complete we will be handing it over to the school.

“It’s been a challenging site because it’s on different levels but it’s going well, it’s great to have the children here to see their sign up because these could be future homes for them and it might inspire some of them to enter into the building industry.”

Ysgol Glan Aber Headmaster Paul Noon was delighted with the new sign and he said:

“It’s been great for us to get involved with what’s going on in the local community and to establish links with local business.

“We have had a school visit from Anwyl Construction and Wales & West and the pupils also need to think about their future careers and they’ve seen here what’s happened from the ground up and it’s a good insight for them into the world of work and which jobs could be available to them in the future.

The four competition winners were Alex Meacock, Year Five; Joe Digby, Year Four; Emily Derby, Year Three; and Evie Davies, Year Two and Alex, aged 10, said:

“I like art and design and although I like drawing animals best, I did enjoy doing a house and I’m really happy to see the pictures on display.”

The first phase of the new development, consisting of energy efficient one, two, three and four bed-homes and will be known as Tir Glas, is due to be completed this early next year.