By Alison WithersTHE first affordable housing scheme to be built in the Suffolk Coastal district using a special planning agreement has been completed.
By Alison Withers
THE first affordable housing scheme to be built in the Suffolk Coastal district using a special planning agreement has been completed.
The five properties, on a site in Stoney Road in Grundisburgh, will remain available for local people at affordable prices in perpetuity.
They were built on land owned by the St Edmundsbury and Ipswich Diocesan Board of Finance and, as land previously used for arable farmig, would not normally have been given planning permission for housing.
An exception to the planning rules was made because a local need for affordable housing could be proven and a special agreement was used to ensure the long-term control of who could occupy the houses.
Two of the five homes are for rent and three for sale on a shared ownership scheme through the rural specialist English Rural Housing Association, which has worked on such schemes in Essex and is now hoping to work with other Suffolk parish councils.
A second phase in the Grundisburgh and Culpho project is envisaged, which would see the building of two three-bedroom houses, three two-bedroom houses and two bungalows.
The scheme came about through a partnership between the charity, the Rural Housing Trust, Grundisburgh and Culpho Parish Council, English Rural Housing Association and Suffolk Coastal District Council.
Parish council chairman Trevor Mallett said: "The parish council has been in partnership with the Rural Housing Trust since 1997.
"We are convinced that the trust's methods of gaining community support for such developments and ensuring that the scheme is designed to meet genuine housing needs has smoothed the process.
"The success of this project is also due to the trust and parish council working together closely to solve the housing issues affecting our community.
"Careful attention to detail has been shown in the design of the development, which respects the local Suffolk vernacular with a mixture of rendered and brickwork elevations, dormer windows and pan tile and clay roof tiling."
alison.withers@eadt.co.uk
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