New homes for locals on existing housing site

Councillors have approved a plan to build 15 new homes for local people who are on Brighton & Hove’s housing waiting list.  

The new flats, to be let at affordable rents, will be at Robert Lodge, Manor Place in Whitehawk, east Brighton.

Accommodation would be in two three-storey blocks at either end of a quadrant.  Two existing blocks will remain, forming a square.  There would be 12 one-bed flats, two two-bed flats and a one-bed wheelchair-accessible flat.

Councillors at planning committee this week (November 19, 2014) approved the application, by the city council’s regeneration department.

The project is part of the authority’s New Homes for Neighbourhoods initiative, which currently has plans to deliver over 170 homes on council land.

The former Manor Road housing office has already been demolished to make way for one of the new buildings.

There would be almost 100 square metres of roof-mounted solar panels generating electricity, along with high standards of insulation and air-tightness to cut fuel bills.

Chair of the planning committee Cllr Phelim Mac Cafferty said:  “I’m extremely pleased this was approved by committee. We now have the creation of 15 desperately-needed affordable, social homes.

“In a city where too many experience hardship because of their rent and with over 19,000 households on the waiting list, it is crucial if we are to find space for new homes that we make the best-possible use of existing housing sites. This plan will provide new energy-efficient homes which will help tenants on tightened budgets as well as provide homes which are friendly to the environment.”