New tenants move in to Council homes
Local residents are being handed the keys to their new Council built homes.
Deputy Leader of Havering Council, Councillor Robert Benham was there to welcome tenants to the new development at Tayberry Court on Briar Road, Harold Hill.
The Council developed the new homes as part of the strategy to develop smaller sites directly through the £2.7m retained Right to Buy receipts from previous sales of Council houses and from an additional £8.5m from HRA funding.
This is the Housing Revenue Account budget held by the Council that can only be spent on building and maintaining Council housing.
One of the first people to move in to Briar Road is Mary from Maygreen Crescent, where she has lived for the past five years.
Due to recent ill-health, her circumstances have changed and meant she needed a home that would be suitable for her to use her wheelchair.
Mary and her husband Martin viewed the property with their two daughters. There are a small number of changes that need to be made to fully meet her needs, but Mary says she is very keen to get in there quickly.
She said, ‘Maygreen Crescent just wasn’t suitable for me anymore, so this property will make life much easier. I’m really looking forward to moving in!”
Councillor Benham said,
“I’d like to warmly welcome Mary and her husband Martin and all the other new tenants to their new Council homes and wish them every happiness here.
“By making better use of smaller sites like this one in Briar Road, we can deliver around a further 500 new homes for Havering residents. This is in addition to the plans to create more than 7,000 new homes, which is one of the largest number in London. These new properties have been built to a high standard, are energy efficient and as we expected, have been in high demand.”
The Briar Road scheme started in Spring 2017 and included the demolition of a small parade of shops, the flats above and some nearby properties, which have made way for ten shared ownership houses, four three beds and six two bed homes.
There are also 36 flats – three one bed, 33 two bed of which five are wheelchair accessible.
In addition, the site has two retail units, which will shortly be available for lease.
The finished development includes 88 parking spaces, seven of which are disabled access only spaces to support the residents and commercial properties.
All of the flats are available at affordable rent and the houses are Low Cost Home Ownership.