Almost 50 new affordable homes will be provided in Shrewsbury – thanks to a £1.8m funding boost for the town’s social housing landlord.
Severnside Housing, which owns and manages the former council housing stock, was informed of the settlement yesterday (Wednesday).
The Housing Corporation is giving a total of £15m to provide 456 new affordable homes across the county by 2011.
And more money is yet to come as its new National Affordable Housing Programme is a three-year, £8.4 billion programme. The homes to be built will include larger ones for families as well those for older and vulnerable people, in rural and urban areas.
There will also be a focus on providing greener, better designed homes and they will be a mix of affordable rented and ‘for sale’ through low-cost shared ownership schemes.
A spokesman for Severnside Housing said several sites were already earmarked for the new homes in Shrewsbury.
“We have been allocated £1.8m and this will provide about 47 homes,” he said.
“This is good news for Severnside and for Shrewsbury.”
Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council’s housing portfolio holder, Councillor Malcolm Price, said the news was ‘fantastic’.
He said in previous rounds of funding SABC had received nothing, but this time a more concerted effort had been made to put forward suitable bids.
“It’s fantastic. One of the problems we have had in previous years is we as a borough had zero contribution from the Housing Corporation. That’s a fault of ourselves not putting the schemes together and putting the bids in,” he said.
“One of the commitments we have had this time is working with all the registered social landlords to get schemes that are complete, as the Housing Corporation said it would only support those put forward that dot the i’s and cross the t’s.”
Mr Price said among the schemes put forward for funding were 20 homes on land near the Territorial Army base in Sundorne Road, ten at The Leasowes in Ford and the Moston Road redevelopment.
He said SABC also had several ‘priority schemes’ with another social landlord, Bromford Housing, but its funding allocation had not been confirmed as the Chronicle went to print.
Mr Price added: “I’m absolutely delighted. There’s currently around 2,500 cases on our waiting list and only around 350 properties available each year.
“The council also has sites for a further 180 properties under discussion and is looking at the best way to seek funding for those.”