£60m funding means 1,000 homes can be built

HALTON Housing has secured £60m of finance to build 1,000 homes in Runcorn and Widnes.

Lloyds Bank said the funding will be used to build houses, apartments and bungalows over the next five years for rent and sale.

Halton Housing said the homes include 80 properties between sites on Picow Farm Road in Runcorn and Warrington Road in Widnes.

However, it was tight- lipped over the locations of the remaining 920 properties, citing the developments as being ‘commercially sensitive’ and not subject to contract.

The homes group said some will be for Halton Housing and others to be marketed by its commercial subsidiary Open Door.

It remains unclear whether the proposed sites could include existing Green Belt or green field sites which are earmarked to be reclassified as residential zones under Halton Council’s controversial Deliveries And Allocations Local Plan (DALP).

A Halton Housing spokeswoman said: “We are looking at other mixed tenure opportunities across the area which suit a number of needs.

“The other ones we have on the go at the moment are still commercially sensitive but will cover a wide range of tenures and be delivered both for Halton Housing and Open Door.

“We are going to deliver outright sale tenures, private rent, deferred sale, rent to sale, shared ownership and traditional affordable rent.

“We have some joint working arrangements with partners such as Seddons to assemble land and deliver larger sites.

Following the finance announcement, Neil McGrath, Halton Housing’s executive director of business services, said: “Housing is in demand across the area and we want to ensure that people have access to high-quality homes that are affordable.

“We’ve worked with Lloyds Bank for more than 12 years and the tailored support it has provided has been a key part of our growth.”

Lloyds Bank’s Mike Stevenson said: “Organisations like Halton Housing are doing fantastic work in local communities, and are helping more people across the area to take their first steps on the property ladder.

“It’s therefore vital that the social housing industry has the specialist funding it needs to thrive, and in 2017 we provided £2bn of new funding.”