We couldn’t have been happier to welcome a VIP visitor to our West Hill II development – super-talented Jake Tanner.
Jake, 15, visits Beal developments in East Yorkshire regularly and loves recreating our homes on his computer.
He captures construction progress through images on his iPad before spending hours building the developments virtually on 3D computer game Minecraft.
Beal superfan Jake’s interest was sparked in 2019 when his parents, Laura and Craig, began to take him to see our sites while they were out shopping.
Jake, who has autism, now visits Pilgrims Walk in Hessle, West Hill II in Kirk Ella and Holderness Chase in Preston each week, as well as a monthly visit to The Greenways in Goole.
Laura regularly shares Jake’s wonderfully creative drawings on Instagram, including detailed site plans he drew in the sand while the family were on holiday in Zante, Greece.
Jake’s talents came to our attention when Laura tagged us into her social media posts.
We were so impressed by Jake’s creativity, we gave him his own Beal-branded high visibility vest and hard hat and invited him to look around part of our West Hill II development and visit his favourite Beal house type, the Canterbury.
Laura said: “Jake’s first ever drawing was of West Hill in June 2019. He didn’t have much speech back then but the detail in his drawing blew us away and his communication skills have definitely improved since he started taking an interest in Beal.
“I knew straight away it was a real interest for him and we started taking Jake to visit Beal sites more regularly. It’s the one thing that he is happy to leave the house for and we’ve never seen him so passionate about anything else.
“At first, he used to hand-draw the developments and recreate the homes with Lego, before he progressed to Minecraft about two years ago. We think his artwork is amazing and deserves to be seen.
“Visiting Beal developments with Jake is the highlight of all our days because, as a mum, when your child is happy, you’re happy, and it helps him to learn. Jake was buzzing when he received his hard hat and high-vis vest and has a special peg for them in his room.
“We believe the visits helped Jake through the Covid-19 pandemic too, as we took him for walks to our nearest developments.”
Laura added: “It’s so nice of Beal to welcome Jake and us and we can’t thank them enough for spending this time with him. He loved every second!”
Glen Royland, Assistant Site Manager at West Hill II, who took Jake on a tour of the Canterbury, said: “Jake is so enthusiastic and talented and his knowledge is incredible. He knew the room layout of this particular house type to a tee.
“As he likes Beal so much, giving him a hard hat and a high visibility vest is the least we can do. His drawings and recreation of the sites on Minecraft have left us so impressed.
“His site map drawings are spot on, including all the plots and driveways. We’re delighted Jake has taken such an interest in our work and we’re so pleased he enjoyed visiting us and meeting some of the team.”
