Kirklees Council to deliver affordable homes in Batley
Kirklees Council are working in partnership with Keepmoat Homes to develop 319 homes on council-owned land in Soothill, Batley.
What’s happening?
The development will include 65 affordable homes, allowing the council to deliver more of the Local Plan allocation for housing development. The development will also provide high-quality open space, including play spaces. In addition to the 65 affordable homes, 15 plots will also be allocated to the government’s First Homes scheme.
What do we mean when we say ‘Affordable homes’
Affordable housing is:
a) Social rented housing; or
b) Intermediate housing for sale; or
c) Intermediate housing for rent
Affordable housing is available to households who otherwise could not house themselves, for example, because they would struggle to afford the cost of housing in the open market, or they need a specific type of house which is not commonly available. It is provided outside the general market i.e. it is not a home bought privately or a home rented from a private landlord. It is therefore not available to households who can meet their own housing needs without Government support.
You can find out more information by visiting:
What is a First Home?
First Homes are a specific kind of discounted market sale housing and should be considered to meet the definition of ‘affordable housing’ for planning purposes.
First Homes are the government’s preferred discounted market tenure and should account for at least 25% of all affordable housing units delivered by developers through planning obligations.
You can find out more information by visiting: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/first-homes
Who is funding the project?
The project is supported by funding from Homes England, the government’s housing and regeneration agency and West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA). The Homes England grant comes from the agency’s Local Authority Accelerated Construction Programme, which aims to help unlock public land and increase the speed of housing delivery using innovative modern methods of construction (MMC). The benefits of MMC include an increased pace of delivery and the production of higher quality, energy efficient homes.
The foundations for 54 plots have now been laid and the first timber frames (as part of MMC) were delivered to site in October 2022. The first plots will be completed by spring 2023 and a total of 73 plots to be completed by December 2023.
Councillor Graham Turner, Cabinet Member for Regeneration, said:
“I am pleased to see another vital project get off the ground in Kirklees. The site is creating hundreds of much-needed modern, energy-efficient homes. Not only providing housing for the people of Kirklees but also helping towards our carbon-neutral goals. The pace of build using MMC is fantastic and it’s great to see that the timber frames are being produced and installed by a local company based in Dewsbury.
By using such a great local business, we are helping sustain not only jobs on the site but in Dewsbury, and by using a local company the transport emissions are kept to a minimum so helping with air quality and reducing greenhouse gasses.
I hope that this is the first of many sites where we can utilise the services of our Dewsbury-based suppliers to help us with our ambitions to create more quality and affordable homes for our residents”.
Find out more about the Kirklees Local Plan.