York family's eco home to feature on TV's Grand Designs (From York Press)

Walker family, from Poppleton, to appear on Channel 4's Grand Designs

8:42am Wednesday 13th March 2013 in News By Haydn Lewis, haydn.lewis@thepress.co.uk

From left, Poppleton Ousebank School teacher Roxy Kauser, pupil Berlin Walker with her mum, Kay, and Grand Designs cameraman Orlando Fowler

A SIX-YEAR-OLD’S networking skills helped land her mum and dad the “perfect team” to help build their York eco-home.

Little Berlin Walker is a pupil at Poppleton Ousebank School and her mum, Kay, said it was in part due to contacts made at the school gate that their dream of building their own eco-home came true.

The Walker family, from Poppleton, are appearing on the popular Channel 4 programme Grand Designs and the television crew turned up on Friday to film Berlin being collected from school as part of the story for the show.

Estelle O’Hara, the school’s head teacher, said: “It’s incredibly exciting, as much for the staff as for the pupils, because we all love Grand Designs and also because it’s such a great community story with the school at the heart of it.”

The show features presenter Kevin McCloud who follows some of Britain’s most ambitious self-building projects, as intrepid individuals attempt to design and construct the home of their dreams.

Mrs Walker, 32, a graphic designer, and her husband, Martin, 38, an architect, run Walker and Nicholas Architects in York and have designed for the Bonding Warehouse and Bettys.

Kay, who has another daughter, Minnie, aged two, said: “My husband put the contract for the builder out to tender. It was Jim Holyland of JD Builders in Poppleton who we chose and his daughter, Florence, is in Berlin’s class. For our windows we went with Steve Butler of Sustainable Windows in Easingwold and his daughter, Evie, is also in the same class.

“It’s been really important for me especially to have the parents of the children my daughter plays with involved in the build.”

Mrs Walker said the idea behind the build was to make a house that pays for itself in the long term through great insulation and solar power to help cut down on expensive utility bills with the plan to finish the build by the summer. It’s not yet known when the programme will appear on television.

Mrs Walker said: “Meeting Kevin McCloud, I didn’t expect to be starstruck, but I was a bit. He really is a genius, he knows everything there is to know about building and he never uses a script which is absolutely amazing.”