More than 150 new council homes are to be delivered in Babergh over the next three years, according to council chiefs – with 45 new affordable homes secured for Sudbury.
The council confirmed it had struck a deal with Anderson Group, developers for the new Chilton Place scheme off Waldingfield Road in Sudbury, to build 45 apartments, flats or houses.
It will add to the authority’s existing stock of 3,400 council properties, or could be made available to buy for low income families as shared-ownership homes.
It marks part of a wider programme of providing more social housing – 158 new properties on developments over the next two-and-a-half years.
Councillor Jan Osborne, Conservative cabinet member for housing, said: “This isn’t just about bricks and mortar – 158 new homes over the next three years means 158 lower income families having somewhere affordable that they are proud to call home.
“As a local authority we have a responsibility to plan and invest to ensure our communities have the homes they need.”
According to the authority, the Sudbury development secured planning permission in July 2018 and the first property for occupation is expected in November 2021.
The council is currently involved in the development of the old Angel Court care home in Hadleigh, where it is creating 21 new one or two bedroom flats either as council homes to be rented out or shared ownership homes.
The home closed in 2014 and was bought by Babergh from Suffolk County Council, with work to be completed in April next year.
Other areas include eight homes at King George’s View in Raydon and 29 affordable homes on the Wolsey Grange development in Sproughton.
The Sproughton development is due for completion in March 2021.
Elsewhere, eight homes will be council properties at the Osier View development in Bears Lane, Lavenham.
A council spokeswoman added that the authority’s strategy was that “everyone in Babergh should have somewhere affordable to live and call home”.
It is understood that 89 homes have been bought or built in the district since 2017 for affordable rent or shared ownership.
Robert Lindsay, Green group leader at the council said: “We ought to be insisting on zero carbon emissions from our own built houses by now, anything else locks us into a future of carbon polluting homes that are needlessly expensive for their residents to keep warm in winter and to keep cool in summer.
“Babergh Council seems still unable even to meet the standards set by Lavenham Community Land Trust when it built homes to a very high insulation standard at Peek Close.
“Also we ought to be investing more of our own money in houses in the district rather than borrowing to buy commercial property miles away from Suffolk, as the council is still insisting on doing via its CIFCO vehicle.
“If in 2017, instead of putting £50million into CIFCO we had put that into building homes in Babergh we would have built far more by now than the rather pitiful 89 homes and achieved a far better return.”
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