Member Article

Meeting housing demand in County Durham

Regeneration and development specialist, Galliford Try Partnerships North, has started work on a project which will create 99 new properties to help meet housing demand in County Durham.

The company has secured an eight acre plot in Bishop Auckland and been granted planning permission by Durham County Council to build the mixed tenure homes.

The site, next to Douglas Crescent, Bishop’s Park, is now being prepared for construction to begin before Christmas. When completed the development will provide 49 homes for sale by Galliford Try’s new homes division - Linden Homes – and a further 30 for affordable rent and 20 for shared ownership - through Riverside Home Ownership.

The project is part of a larger site – originally granted outline planning permission for 500 homes in 2011. However the proposal did not come to fruition and the land, earmarked for housing since 2007, was never developed.

Now, by using grant it secured from Homes England’s Affordable Homes Programme 2016/21, Galliford Try Partnerships North has created a financially viable scheme and unlocked the potential of the site. Development Director, Andrew Rennie, said: “This is a development which will meet the needs of all those seeking homes.

“There will be three and four bedroomed houses for families wanting to buy, those whose budget is more suited to a shared ownership option and people seeking homes with affordable rents. We can deliver this by working, once again with our partner, Riverside Home Ownership, to create a vibrant and sustainable community on the edge of Bishop Auckland.”

Rachael Pauls, Sales Negotiator at Riverside Home Ownership, said: “We are thrilled to be working with Galliford Try once again on a development in the North East. Bishop’s Park will provide a range of housing options that will suit many people in the area and so we expect interest to be very high.

“We’ll be releasing further details on the affordable rent and shared ownership schemes in due course.”

It is hoped the first new homes will be ready to occupy by summer 2019.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Paul Dobbie .