FAMILIES struggling to afford a decent home of their own have been settling in to new energy efficient properties built on a former Brierley Hill steel works site as part of a private and public sector partnership to provide good quality social housing.
Residents have begun moving into their new homes, on the site of the old Cookley Works steel factory, off Leys Road, after national housebuilder Lovell completed construction work and passed the properties to Platform Housing Group.
All 71 homes which have been built on the five-acre site are classed as affordable, with half the homes being offered by Platform at affordable rents and half under an affordable shared ownership scheme.
Two of the new residents, Tag and Justine Majid, who run an automotive business in Lye, have recently bought their new home under a shared ownership scheme.
Tag, aged 52, said: “It was impossible to get a mortgage because we were self-employed and because of our age. We were having to pay £1,000 a month in private rent for a property that was riddled with mould and damp. It was so bad we couldn’t live there any longer and ended up living in a caravan for three months.
“I can’t describe how buying this house has changed our lives – we thought we would never be able to get a home of our own.”
The scheme to provide affordable homes on the development was made possible thanks to a £1million investment from West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA).
Richard Parker, the new Mayor of the West Midlands and chairperson of the WMCA, met with Tag and Justine and other residents during a tour of the new development on Wednesday (July 31).
He said: “Listening to the previous experiences of those who have moved into these wonderful new homes, shows how the current housing crisis is blighting lives and holding people back.
“Cookley Works is a great example of how the public and private sectors can work together to provide good quality social housing that is genuinely affordable but we need to do so much more if we are going to change lives for the better.
“Too many people have no choice but to pay sky high rents for poor quality housing simply because there are not enough social and affordable homes being built or protected.
“That’s why I am talking with government about loosening our funding straitjacket and giving us greater flexibility in how we can use our existing multi-million-pound housing war chest.
“We want to use that money to support schemes that can deliver more social and affordable homes for those communities that need them most. This way we can begin to fix the housing crisis.”
Cookley Works had lain derelict since the last business based there closed in 2007, ending more than 150 years of steel industry on the site. The site’s owners at the time, Tata Steel, sold the site to Lovell for £4.5 million.
The WMCA’s investment was used to unlock the site for housing by cleaning up the land and making it suitable for redevelopment.
The scheme is part of the WMCA’s ‘brownfield first’ approach to housing, which targets former industrial sites and vacant urban plots for new developments to help drive local regeneration.
Stuart Penn, regional managing director at Lovell, said: “Bringing the plans for Cookley Works to fruition is a fantastic milestone for affordable and social housing in the region. We need to be unlocking more brownfield sites such as this former steel works site and building high-quality housing where they are needed most.”
Elizabeth Froude, CEO of Platform Housing Group, added: “Cookley Works proves that with a bit of perseverance and good partners even complex sites can deliver more housing.
“We remain committed to ongoing building of quality affordable new homes across the midlands and currently have almost 1,000 more homes in the WMCA area in our pipeline for delivery in the next five years.”
Councillor Patrick Harley, leader of Dudley Council, said: “As an authority that has made a clear commitment on the use of brownfield sites first, I welcome the development on the old Cookley Works.
“This is exactly the kind of approach we need from developers as we look for land for housing and employment opportunities in our borough.”
More than £100million of WMCA brownfield funding is still available to developers who share the region’s ambition to transform more brownfield sites into high quality, inclusive communities with genuinely affordable homes at their heart.
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