Section: Building & Regeneration

Northern Housing Challenge Projects Update

Fourteen innovative housing projects were given the green light to bid for investment, in the drive to deliver affordable homes and boost economic growth in the North of England.

The Northern Housing Challenge was launched by the Housing Corporation last year to promote new housing-led projects that will help shrink the £30 billion difference in economic performance between the North and the South, while providing homes for over 10,500 people.

The fourteen new schemes are from a mixture of housing associations, private developers, and, for the first time, Arms Length Management Organisations (ALMOs ). The proposals range from new homes to halt the migration of young talent from the North, to regeneration projects and schemes offering access to training and employment opportunities.

The fourteen shortlisted schemes are as follows:

Tees Valley Housing Group - North Shore Stockton-on-Tees:

The proposal aims to provide affordable housing to retain local skills and for entrepreneurs looking to start their own business.
Housing Hartlepool - Sustainable Regeneration Hartlepool:

The proposed programme of housing renewal offers a major opportunity for the continued development of Hartlepool's economy.
Erimus Housing, Middlesbrough - Boho Live/Work Zone:

This flagship project aims to encourage some of the 1,500 technology graduates from the University of Teeside to remain in the Tees Valley and develop businesses in the digital technology, creative and media sectors.
St Vincents Housing Association, Rochdale - 21st Century Industrial Town:

The proposal will link economic regeneration to housing provision of all tenures by refining land use into distinct residential and industrial areas of high demand, and by creating employment opportunities and training placements.

Great Places Housing Group, Bolton - Community Equity Trust:

The proposal will regenerate the Union Road area of Bolton where poor housing, low economic output and low aspirations are the norm.
Contour Housing Group - Second Steps - Central Lancashire:

This proposal will create affordable and aspirational housing for graduates, skilled workers and other professionals, together with a series of financial products to meet their needs along the housing ladder.
Riverside Housing Association, Liverpool - Brownstones:

The Brownstones project offers an opportunity to create more sustainable neighbourhoods by providing affordable homes for key workers and others, giving them the chance to gain a footing on the property ladder.
Northwards - Freshfields:

The proposal will see the creation of a mixed tenure 'community for life' consisting of first-time buyer accommodation, affordable family housing and a bespoke vertical retirement village.
Firebird JVC - Leeds/Bradford Corridor Project:

The project intends to develop new approaches for drawing marginalised residents back into economic activity through housing, as a complementary part of its proposal to create and provide over 900 desirable and affordable mixed tenure accommodation.
Kirklees Neighbourhood Housing - Fieldhead Regeneration Partnership

The proposal is to redevelop low-demand housing and promote economic regeneration on a large estate, which is one of the poorest in the country in Birstall, near Batley, West Yorkshire.
Chevin Housing Group - Darnall & Attercliffe Regeneration Project, East Sheffield:

The proposal intends to unlock a range of affordable housing opportunities in the Darnall and Attercliffe areas of Sheffield.
In Business for Yorkshire - Yorkshire Housing & South Yorkshire Housing Association - Prince of Wales Colliery Site:

The proposal will create well designed homes across a range of tenures as part of the redevelopment of the Prince of Wales site in Pontefract.
South Yorkshire Housing Association - Fir Vale, Sheffield:

High quality new affordable homes will be provided offering a range of types and tenures for the existing BME communities and key health workers linked to the Northern General hospital.
Keepmoat PLC - Homebuy Plus:

The "Homebuy Plus" concept to be piloted in the Barnsley area will provide support to economic development plans and will help attract and retain key workers to improve output and productivity.

Scheme Update

England

The planting of a tree marked the completion of a new affordable housing development by Waterloo Housing Association. Hanbury Court is a new development of 14 apartments, which has brought new vitality to a site cleared of old council housing in the Belgrave area of Tamworth in Staffordshire.

The £1.01 million development of the former Righton House is the result of a partnership between Waterloo and Tamworth Borough Council. It has been funded by Waterloo with the support of a £674,000 social housing grant from the government-backed Housing Corporation.

Hanbury Court's two-bedroom apartments include ten rented homes, and four homes sold through shared ownership on a part-buy and part-rent basis. The rented homes have been let to people nominated from the council's waiting list.
The official opening of an £18.7 million development of new sustainable, energy efficient homes took place in Norwich. The scheme is the largest development of affordable housing in Norwich for many years and provides 148 homes for 600 people in Earlham. The new homes replace houses that had been built in the 1920s. By the end of the last century, their concrete block construction was obsolete and they were increasingly inefficient to maintain.

A partnership of Broadland Housing Association, Circle Anglia and Norwich City Council embarked on a project to regenerate the site in 2004, with a scheme hailed by the Housing Corporation as 'an exemplar of regeneration'. The result is a total transformation of the area, the construction of the biggest new social housing scheme in Norwich for many years and new affordable homes with some excellent eco-friendly features.

The homes are built using Kingspan Century's TEK Building System, a modern method of construction comprising structural insulated panel technology and timber from sustainable sources. This system was specified for its outstanding thermal credentials, which deliver significant energy efficiencies and low heating costs (typical space and water heating costs for a two bedroom house at the scheme will be as little as about £4.00 per week) and reduces carbon emissions by about 14% compared to traditionally built homes. Major components for the homes were manufactured off-site, which minimised the impact of the construction process on the local environment.

These factors, combined with arrangements for minimising water use, fuel sources for heating, the use of low energy lighting internally and externally, the provision of cycle storage facilities, the provision of recycling facilities inside every home and the protection of ecological features at the site, meant the new homes have received a Building Research Establishment EcoHomes environmental rating standard of "Very Good".

The site also includes pilot installations of photovoltaic cells, which use the power of the sun to generate electricity. These will be monitored with a view to installing them at more homes at the new development in the future.

The new scheme provides a much wider and appropriate mix of one, two, three and four bedroom accommodation. 143 of the homes are for affordable rent while three two-bedroom houses and two three-bedroom houses are for shared ownership.
Somer Community Housing Trust selected Lovell for a £40 million scheme to redevelop structurally defective prefabricated reinforced concrete (PRC) homes in five areas of the Trust's estates in Bath and Keynsham in north east Somerset.

All of the Trust's remaining PRC properties will be dealt with and over 200 homes will be built for local residents as well as a further 120 homes for sale. Plans will now be finalised in close consultation with residents and the first properties will soon be demolished in Keynsham, where residents have already been moving out.

The Trust has involved residents in each stage of the project. Members of the resident-led PRC Working Group visited several sites that the two short-listed companies previously worked on and their views were fed back to the selection team.
Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council celebrated the first stages of the £80 million redevelopment of Hatfield Town Centre. The event took place at the Metropolitan Housing Partnership (MHP) affordable housing development on the former Forum theatre site, which will bring 84 affordable new homes to Hatfield.

The former Forum theatre site, which is being developed by MHP in partnership with St Modwen, comprises 84 flats - 46 for affordable rent, 28 for Shared ownership and 10 intermediate rented units for key workers. It will be completed by August 2008, with the shared ownership properties offered for sale from March 2009.

High levels of insulation are built into the homes, which will give future residents low fuel bills. Sustainable issues are high on the agenda for the housing scheme, which will meet the 'very good' eco-homes rating.

The key elements of the redevelopment of Hatfield town centre will include modern shopping with restaurants and bars, a new town square, increased car parking, improved pedestrian access and new bus interchanges in an attractive environment. Subject to a successful Public Enquiry, construction will begin on the main town centre redevelopment scheme by the end of 2008.

Scotland

A £63 million Neighbourhood Renewal Plan got underway this week in North West Dumfries with the demolition of a sub-standard block of flats.

The neighbourhood renewal project, one of the largest of its kind in Scotland, jointly funded by Dumfries & Galloway Housing Partnership, Dumfries & Galloway Council and Communities Scotland will include the building of over 600 new homes in Dumfries and Stranraer within the next five years.

The Regeneration will see the transformation of some of the worst social housing in the region. Councillor Roger Grant, Vice Chair of Dumfries and Galloway Council's Planning, Housing and Environmental Services Committee, said: "The Oliphant Court project is the first in Dumfries and an early action in a series of projects that will impact on the lives of over 600 families across Dumfries & Galloway."

Section: Building & Regeneration

Northern Housing Challenge Projects Update

Scheme Update

England

Scotland

Housing Monthly Diary

Reporting on July 2007

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