Two projects to build more affordable homes in the Lake District have been given the go-ahead.
South Lakeland District Council has agreed to progress its plans to buy land in Heversham, near Milnthorpe.
It will use cash from the Right to Buy initiative to finance the sale and will carry out a study to determine the viability of all the properties being marketed as affordable.
The site already has planning permission for six homes – two earmarked affordable and four at market value.
When the study has been completed a further report will be brought back to the authority’s cabinet for approval about the number of houses the site can accommodate, the number of affordable units to be built and energy efficiency proposals for each unit.
Council leader Jonathan Brook, said: “It is an aspiration of this council to deliver affordable homes, wherever we can, particularly in rural communities.
“There is a clear need for affordable housing in Heversham and in this case, we are able to intervene directly, to deliver new, energy efficient homes. Our ambition is to ensure that these houses are built with sustainable eco-measures at their heart, making them energy efficient and avoiding the expense and inconvenience of retro-fitting at a later stage.
“This small development will provide a new, exciting approach, to environmentally sustainable housebuilding locally.”
The cabinet also approved in principle a plan to release Langstone House in Broad Street, Windermere for affordable housing.
The building is owned by the authority but has been declared surplus to requirements.
Windermere and Bowness Town Council has statutory user rights to use the building but has agreed in principle to relinquish them – dependent on further detailed discussions and agreement – in return for a new base for them being developed in the nearby Ellerthwaite depot, which is also surplus to the district council’s requirements.
Members were told that £90,000 had been earmarked for the depot development.
A feasibility study of Langstone House is now planned with a view to creating affordable housing on the site, either via a revamp of the existing premises or redevelopment of the site.
The schemes will support the council’s work to reach a target of 1,000 homes for rent in the district between 2014 and 2025.
Since the target was set in 2014, new affordable homes for rent have been built across South Lakeland, including on developments in Ambleside, Kendal, Coniston, Grange, Staveley, Ulverston and Kirkby Lonsdale. By the end of 2021, 554 had been delivered.
The council currently holds £5.47 million of capital receipts from Right To Buy sales – when tenants of housing associations retain their Right to Buy when their home is transferred to a housing association from a local authority.
