Published: Friday, 16th March 2018

Plans for three additional sites to build affordable homes have been approved.

The latest stage in the innovative partnership between the Royal Borough of Greenwich and Meridian Home Start to provide affordable homes for local people has taken a major step forward.

The Council has approved plans to transfer three additional sites across to Meridian Home Start and has agreed a loan facility that will build one, two, three and four bedroom properties which will then be available at affordable rents to local people and families.

206 new affordable homes created

This is further to the three sites already transferred across to Meridian Home Start. Work recently started on house building on the first site in Rochester Way. When construction is completed in May 2019, it will provide 29 new affordable homes to rent in Eltham.

Planning is advanced on the two other sites being developed by Meridian Home Start at Sandpits Place, SE7, and Carnbrook Road, SE3 with these three sites creating 98 affordable homes in total.

The three new sites to be transferred, at Fred Styles House in SE7, in Shepherds Leas, SE9 and on Vincent Road, SE18, will increase the number of new affordable homes created to an estimated 206.

'Our commitment to provide more affordable homes'

Councillor Danny Thorpe, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Sustainability, said: "Meridian Home Start can access funding streams that are not available to the Council to increase the supply of genuinely affordable homes for residents in the borough. This is just one of the ways we are following through on our commitment to provide more affordable homes in the Royal Borough."

Meridian Home Start was set up by the Council as a Community Benefit Society. It operates fully independently of the Council, is free from restrictions on borrowing and is able to maximise the opportunity to utilise Right To Buy receipts for the benefit of residents within the borough. 

Richard Reynolds, Chair of Meridian Home Start, said: "With our first six developments secured we are now well on our way to achieving our ambitious target of building hundreds of additional affordable homes for the people of Greenwich"