Salford hives off 82 homes to Derive
The authority’s cabinet has agreed to make the properties available across two different schemes, St Luke’s and Brackley Village, via its development company.
Salford Council’s cabinet made the decision this week in light of more money being made available through the Local Authority Housing Fund.
LAHF money is ringfenced for the purpose of housing people in urgent need such as refugees and victims of domestic abuse.
St Luke’s site
A total of 62 homes will be made available on the former St Lukes school site, off Kerrera Drive.
The previously approved scheme for St Luke’s was to develop 36 apartments and 32 houses, built to Passivhaus standards. Of those, 56 homes were to be transferred to Derive RP for social and affordable rent through Salford Home Search, with 12 homes to be made available for shared ownership market sale.
The LAHF funding will enable additional development at the three-acre site off Eccles New Road, as an alternative to shared ownership sales.
The tenure mix has been amended to comprise 26 homes for social rent and 36 homes for affordable rent to be transferred to Derive.
More than £7.5m will be lent by Salford City Council to Derive for the purchase of the 62 homes, to be repaid over 40 years.
According to the report to cabinet, the award of the contract to Seddon Construction to build the affordable homes was subject to a separate procurement board approval.
The authority’s cabinet has agreed to make the properties available across two different schemes, via its development company.
Brackley Village site
At the same meeting the council agreed to approve the transfer to Derive of 20 three-bed properties the authority snapped up from Bellway’s 667-unit Brackley Village development.
LAHF grant will be used used to allow Derive to deliver two of the homes at affordable rent levels initially for people in urgent housing need.
While the council will loan £3.3m to Derive for this initially, it is expected the development company will secure Homes England grant funding to buy the units as affordable homes as phased completions happen.
If Derive is unable to secure Homes England funding, but the council is able to, the authority will acquire the 18 option units from Bellway for use as affordable homes.
There are dozens of vacant plots, all eye-sores, in Irlam & Cadishead that could have housing built on them. Most have been available for the 25 years I’ve been living in the area. The much vaunted “Cadishead Village” development didn’t materialise – another example of Salford Council’s ineptitude and treating local residents with disdain.
By Okeefe