Council project to build 18 new homes set to start

January 20, 2016 by Southend Borough Council

Council project to build 18 new homes set to start

Wednesday 20th January 2016

Southend-on-Sea Borough Council is to continue its drive to create more local affordable homes for rent, with the building of 18 new properties in Shoeburyness.

Following a competitive tendering process the Council has now appointed DCB (Kent) Ltd for the contract to Design and Build these affordable housing units across six underutilised garage sites in Shoeburyness.

The project has a budget of just over £2.8m and will start on site in mid-March with the start of garage demolition works. The completion of all 18 units is expected by April 2017.

The appointed main contractor, DCB (Kent) Ltd has experience in delivering housing for local authorities, and working on constrained garage sites and are therefore in a good position to deliver a quality project, and engage with local residents.

Cllr David Norman, Executive Councillor for Housing, says: “The need for affordable housing for rent within the Borough is as great as ever and our commitment to addressing housing need is well documented.

“Following the Council’s first home that was completed recently, I am delighted that we can now take forward a much more substantial and impactful scheme that will make a real difference to local people.

“This is an exciting opportunity to build a number of new council homes for the first time in decades and to begin to tackle the urgent need for good quality accommodation in the town at a moderate cost.

"Whilst more work needs to be done on looking at long term options for council housing, we have development funds available to pursue this pilot scheme. Part of this is time limited money including Right to Buy (RTB) receipts and Section 106 planning contributions that if not spent will be handed back to central Government.

"The pilot sites suffer from anti-social behaviour and cases of fly tipping and so this is also an opportunity to regenerate these sites.”