A green light for affordable homes
New venture Homes for West Berks on former care home site
A PROJECT to build affordable new homes in Hungerford has been given the go-ahead.
But district councillors were apparently unable to meet a Hungerford Town Council challenge to conform to future ‘green’ guidelines now and thus set an example to other developers.
Eight ‘affordable’ new homes will now be built on the site of the former Chestnut Walk care home, which was forced to close after falling victim to West Berkshire Council’s far-reaching cuts to public services in 2016/17.
The homes will be among the first to be built under a joint venture between West Berkshire Council and Sovereign Housing, called Homes for West Berkshire.
But members of West Berkshire Council’s western area planning committee, who gave the green light, nevertheless said they were unable to meet a Hungerford Town Council challenge to live up to their own ‘climate emergency’ declaration by adopting better than current standards.
The town council’s John Downe told the meeting: “We’re very keen to see a long-derelict and unsightly care home site used and
improved... affordable homes are much needed in our town.”
But he pointed out that the Government is expected to insist on more stringent sustainability for developments in 2025 and added: “In our discussions with Homes for West Berkshire we’ve been repeatedly assured it was both parties’ intention that these homes would be constructed and provided with heating systems that would use the standards set out in the Government’s future homes standards due for 2025.”
Although the district council would get slightly less value for the land, Mr Downe suggested, to do otherwise could leave West Berkshire Council “open to charges of hypocrisy”, given its climate emergency declaration.
Mr Downe added: “We trust that councillors here would want to be seen to walk the walk... [and] to create an exemplary housing showpiece in Hungerford to illustrate to other commercial developers what they could, and should, also be doing – starting now and not waiting.”
Town mayor Helen Simpson has previously said, when discussing this issue: “These things should be at the top of all our agendas – money shouldn’t be the only object here.”
One resident, Maria White, had written to planners stating: “All new build homes in the UK are supposed to be carbon zero by 2025 under the latest Government regulations.
“Therefore, the new homes in Coldharbour Road need to be produced with solar panels, high-level insulation and non-fossil fuel heating systems.”
However, at the meeting, planning officer Simon Till said the committee should follow its own legal framework when deciding any application – including one where it was a joint applicant.
The application for the new project was approved, as it stood.