Work on a new social housing development in Swinnow is proceeding at pace, council chiefs have said.
Despite local concerns over design and access, Leeds City Council secured planning permission last October for 82 houses and apartments on the site of a former school at Hough Top.
And, six months on, construction activity is proceeding at pace, with a new road layout already taking shape and good progress being made on car parking, substations and perimeter fencing.
The development – which is being delivered via Leeds’s Council Housing Growth Programme (CHGP) – will comprise 55 houses and 27 apartments, with a mix of one, two, three and four bedrooms.
The apartments will be located in a new three-storey building named Hough Top Court.
The site’s roads, meanwhile, will be called Hough Common, Hough Fold and Hough Drive.
All 82 properties will be made available for affordable rent. The new homes will also be fitted with air source heat pumps, a sustainable heating solution that will help cut carbon emissions, tackle fuel poverty and support Leeds’s net zero ambitions.
The development is being delivered for the council by construction company Willmott Dixon. To date, its team has run more than 30 apprentice training weeks, undertaken 50 hours of school engagement and carried out 80 hours of career mentoring for local people.
Councillor Jess Lennox, Leeds City Council’s executive member for housing, said: “The Hough Top scheme is an excellent example of how the council is working, with partners, to deliver good quality, energy efficient and affordable homes for the people of Leeds.
“The difference that a development like this can make to local families is huge, particularly in an area such as Pudsey where there are significant housing needs.
“Our aim is to ensure that communities right across Leeds can benefit in the same way and, while we know there is still much to do, the various schemes currently taking shape as part of our Council Housing Growth Programme are moving us ever closer to realising that ambition.”
The bulk of the funding for the scheme – scheduled for completion late next year – is being provided by the council’s housing service via Right to Buy receipts and borrowing, with £1.64m of grant support coming from the West Yorkshire Combined Authority’s Brownfield Housing Fund.
Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire, said: “Because of devolution, we’ve been able to invest almost £90m to help unlock over 5,000 new homes, including dozens of affordable and sustainable homes in Pudsey.”
Chris Yates, Yorkshire director at Willmott Dixon, said: “Our team of local housing experts bring a wealth of experience to Hough Top. We share Leeds City Council’s passion for creating employment opportunities for this community.
“In partnership with our local supply chain partners, we are committed to supporting local people through our dedicated Building Lives Academy skills programme, as well as continuing to work closely with local schools and colleges.”
More than 350 new homes have been built via the council’s CHGP since 2018. More than 420 homes have also been acquired as part of the programme, with these properties and the new-builds both playing a crucial role in efforts to ease local affordable housing pressures.
Places where CHGP schemes are currently under construction include the former Middlecross Day Centre site in Armley.
This development is a financial disaster.
For the £22.4 million this site is costing LCC, the Council Housing Growth Team’s OWN figures show LCC could have added 199 homes to council stock by buying and refurbing existing houses.
Or they could have gone shopping in Pudsey’s many estate agents over the 2 years it will take to build this scheme, and paid only about £17 million to buy 82 homes of the same mix.
Add to that the fact that LCCs level of net external debt was £2.5 BILLION in 24/24, these are not in anyway “affordable homes” as claimed.
The design and layout of these so called “affordable” homes do not fit in with the local area – and with minor changes to layout and materials, so easily could have done. But 150 objections from the people who live, here asking for revisions, were completely ignored. All through the planning application, LCC kept claiming “Financial Viability” as the reason why they coulkd not make any material change to their design and layout.
Their claimed need to retain “Financial Viability” for this development was their excuse to break numerous requirements of the NPPF, ignore Saved Policies of the Unitary Development Plan and the Council’s Local Plan, plus disregard the Biodiversity requirements amongst others.
They also used it to justify an increase in development density from the original allocation, the use of lower quality build materials and the poor site layout and access, all so the scheme remains “Financially Viable” at 100% Affordable Housing.
Yet they never actually showed a Viability calculation in any of the documentation. Freedom of Information requests have been (illegally!) ignored. Isn’t it odd that – despite the fact that it is ALL public money being used here – there is no clear evidence to back up the constant assertion that neither LCC as developer, nor LCC as Planning Authority could make improvements to the layout or design, as the scheme will become unviable?
LCCs “Financial Viability” for the build seemingly requires spending between 33.37% and 39.56% MORE than it would cost the Council House Growth Team to BUY 82 already-built homes in the area. How is that “affordable housing”?