Nearly 500 affordable homes to be built on Yorkshire coast

AFFORDABLE housing on the Yorkshire coast was given a further boost yesterday as plans were unveiled to build nearly 500 homes for buyers on a budget.

The announcement comes only days after it emerged that the Government had earmarked more than 3m of new funding to target property price hotspots in the Scarborough district.

The Homes and Communities Agency confirmed last week that it has agreed to provide 3.2m to support the development of 82 new affordable homes in Filey, Glaisdale and Whitby.

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Scarborough Borough Council has now published its Housing Action Plan, which will be the guiding light of house-building from next year until 2014.

A key target is to deliver 470 new affordable homes by March 2014.

Also included is a commitment to continue delivering affordable housing in rural areas.

Affordable housing targets are also be enshrined in whatever planning guidelines emerge from the wreckage of the former Government's old house-building targets and the Local Development Framework, the tool intended to replace the Local Plan.

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Scarborough Council will also be looking to the private sector to meet some of the housing need with new targets for landlords designed to raise standards.

One of the other main planks of the strategy will be to help hard-pressed families cut crippling fuel bills, including modernisation schemes to reduce the carbon footprint of homes in some of the most deprived areas of the Borough.

More immediately, the funding announcement will enable a number of affordable housing schemes to go ahead, including 61 homes for rent and shared ownership at Muston Road in Filey by Coast and Country Housing Association.

This forms part of a wider development of 300 new homes at Muston Road, which will eventually include 120 affordable homes.

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Coast and Country Housing will shortly be submitting a detailed planning application for the development and subject to this being approved, work will start on site next March.

The site already has outline planning approval although, as reported by the Yorkshire Post, there are still concerns

about flooding because of to the condition of the local drainage system.

A further 11 homes for rent and shared ownership in Glaisdale near Whitby are to be developed by Sanctuary Housing Association, which hopes to start on site early next year.

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Planning consent will be sought this autumn for 10 bungalows for rent in Whitby by Yorkshire Coast Homes to replace six out-dated prefabricated bungalows.

Subject to getting planning approval, they hope to start work on demolishing the old bungalows and building the new properties early next year.

Scarborough Borough Council's portfolio holder for housing, Coun Jonathan Dixon, said: "This is excellent news for the borough and demonstrates the commitment that has been made by the council towards increasing the supply of affordable housing in the borough and addressing the shortage.

"The 3.2m represents one of the biggest allocations of funding for new affordable housing across the whole of the Yorkshire and the Humber region, with the Muston Road allocation being the second highest allocation of any single housing scheme in the region."

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Coast & Country's chief executive, Iain Sim, added: "The HCA's grant is a key building block toward providing 300 quality, energy efficient family homes for the Filey area."

The council said the funding will help create nearly 140 properties on eight sites across the district will provide "much needed accommodation to ease the borough's severe affordable housing shortage".