Plans to offer 99 brand new council homes in Mansfield take step forward

One of the schemes will see an expansion of the Poppy Fields development at Centenary Road with 77 new homes for older people and families, built at a cost of £14.8million.

The other, costing £5.7million, involves demolishing a row of flats and shops in Egmanton Road on the Bellamy Road estate and replacing them with 22 family homes built round a ‘village green’ with a play area.

All the homes will be offered for affordable rents and will be owned and managed by Mansfield District Council.

A delegated decision to approve the schemes and take them forward, subject to planning consent, was taken by councillor Marion Bradshaw, portfolio holder for safer communities, housing and wellbeing on Monday, January 18.

Final approval for the funding requirements of the schemes will be taken by the full council on January 27.

Subject to planning and financial approvals, work on the schemes is expected to start later this year.

Councilllor Bradshaw said: "These are significant schemes which we are very proud of and will deliver a variety of much needed affordable new council housing for both families and older people.

"In particular, one of them will help address a district-wide shortage of two-bedroom bungalows.

"These schemes align with all four of the key council strategic priorities for growth, wellbeing, aspiration and place.”

The council's in-house architects are designing the homes to align with government carbon reduction targets and to the Future Homes Standard, expected to be adopted nationally by 2025.The standard requires new homes to be future-proofed with low carbon heating and high energy efficiency with an average semi-detached home producing 75 per cent to 80 per cent fewer carbon dioxide emissions than one built to current building regulations.Coun Bradshaw added: "Among the themes of these strategies are targets to develop a better and wider mix of housing across the district.

"All the homes will be built to a higher specification than is currently required to future proof them for expected new housing standards and make them flexible living spaces that can adapt to tenants' changing needs over their lifetime.

"They will not only offer an excellent quality of the life for the tenants who will live in these new homes, but deliver improvements that will benefit the wider neighbourhoods around these schemes, too."The construction of them will also provide work and supply chain opportunities for local people and businesses at a time when we need to support our local economy as much as possible in the midst of the terrible effects of the coronavirus pandemic."

The development of the Centenary Road scheme (formerly Brownlow Road) is the third and final phase of a flagship council project to clear an area renowned for poor quality, low demand and empty housing and anti-social behaviour, and transform it with a total of 161 high quality council homes to rent, mostly for older people.Work on the third phase is set to start in the late part of 2021.