Homes planned on garage site aim to be ‘super-efficient’
£5.2M HOUSING SCHEME SET TO GET GO-AHEAD
DERBYSHIRE Dales District Council is set to back a £5.2 million scheme for 33 super-efficient houses currently being built on the former Dove Garage site in Mayfield Road.
All of the homes are being badged as “affordable housing”, developed by the Nottingham Community Housing Association, which secured planning approval from the council – at the time for 37 homes – in September.
And, when it is completed, the new estate is set to become the most energy-efficient set of houses ever built in the district.
At a district council meeting last week the authority agreed to contribute more than half a million pounds, funded by developer funds from other planning developments, to back the scheme.
It said in a report that: “The council’s contribution will help finance the most energy-efficient affordable housing scheme – and possibly private housing scheme – ever built in the Dales.
“The scheme includes elements of off-site manufacture, will be completely off gas, every home will be heated by air source heat pumps and will have a solar PV (solar panels) array.
“The scheme also delivers a substantial improvement to an existing brownfield site, as well as providing much needed affordable homes in Ashbourne.”
A page on the Nottingham Community Housing Association’s website lists the Mayfield Road development as being due for completion in winter 2023.
It says all of the homes will be built to an energy efficiency rating of A – with energy ratings ranging from A through to G.
When the homes were approved last September, Jeremy Mason, the council’s rural housing enabler, said there were 141 households on the housing register seeking an affordable home in Ashbourne.
These are people who either currently live in Ashbourne or who claim a local connection to it and meet strict criteria showing they cannot afford a market home.
The homes approved on the site would be a mix of affordable rent (80 per cent of the area’s market rent), and shared ownership (in which residents own a portion of the home).
They would all also include eco wall insulation, water retention measures and energy-saving appliances.
Isabel Cogings, on behalf of the housing association, had said: “It is a significant achievement to bring forward a 100 per cent affordable scheme on a former garage site, where each home has an A-rated energy certificate,
“It is a fabulous opportunity to deliver much-needed affordable homes in a central location in Ashbourne, close to a wide range of local facilities on a rather unsightly brownfield site which will greatly enhance this part of town.”
In July 2019, plans had been submitted for 49 retirement homes on the service station site, put forward by Mccarthy and Stone, but it withdrew the scheme.