New 'Green Living' Homes in Bardney

An exciting opportunity to acquire new 'green' properties will be available this month.

The properties, off Wragby Road in Bardney, have solar panels already installed and are built by the Kier Partnership Homes division of the Kier Group in partnership with West Lindsey District Council and Acis Group.

This new development, known as Saxonwood, is offering 17 two and three bedroom houses for social rent and two two-bedroom houses on a rent to homebuy basis.

Housing, Renewal and Community Safety Service Manager Grant Lockett said:

"The properties are due to be completed and ready to move into by the end of March and will be managed Acis, a Registered Housing Provider.

"This is good news for the local people of Bardney, and it will help them to get a home and also get a start on the property ladder."

To qualify for one of these homes you need to be registered on the West Lindsey Housing Register and have a local connection to Bardney.

A local connection means you were either born in Bardney or you are a permanent resident now. If you used to live there but had to move away because of the lack of affordable housing or you are employed in Bardney, also qualifies you. If you live or have lived in one of the villages next to or close to Bardney, may also count.

For more details and information on how to register contact the Home Options Team at West Lindsey District Council on 01427 676676.

The comfortable and spacious properties comprise of an entrance hall, cloakroom, lounge, spacious kitchen/diner, useful storage, two or three bedrooms, family bathroom and an enclosed rear garden with shed.

The scheme was funded by a Social Housing Grant from the Homes and Communities Agency, a Government funding body for Registered Housing Providers (RHP) that supports investment; regeneration and the development of good urban and rural social housing.

Find Out About New Way of Renting a Home

A new way of renting a home is being introduced throughout West Lindsey.

The district council and housing association Acis are bringing in Choice Based Lettings and consultation meetings are being held from next week to tell the public how it will work.

 

West Lindsey's housing and renewals service manager, Mr. Grant Lockett, explained:

"Choice Based Lettings is where landlords advertise available properties and applicants are asked to express their interest in - or bid for - the home they would like to live in.

"The idea is to make the process of registering for an affordable home as simple as possible and to give people greater choice in selecting where and in what type of property they want to live in."

Drop In sessions where people can find out more are planned as follows:

 

• Monday, 22nd February, Drakes Court, Caistor 4 - 7pm
• Tuesday, 23rd February, Engine Room, Gainsborough 10am - 1pm
• Tuesday, 23rd February, Community Centre, Park Springs 5 - 7pm
• Wednesday 24th February, Saxilby Village Hall 2 - 4pm
• Thursday 25th February, Fletcher Court, Market Rasen 10am - 1pm
• Friday, 26th Februar, Fiskerton Village Hall 11am - 1pm

The new lettings policy is due to be introduced late this year. More details can be found at www.west-lindsey.gov.uk/housing or by calling the housing team on (01427) 676676.

 

 

 

Housing Staff Win Inspection Awards

Five members of the housing team at West Lindsey District Council are now qualified to inspect houses and judge whether they are fit to live in.

The award is nationally recognised and can only be awarded by the University of Warwick.

Training for the award was carried out by Decent and Safe Homes, part of Derby City Council, and they were so impressed by the facilities available at the council headquarters at the Guildhall in Gainsborough, that they have decided to use it as their training base.

Council Chairman Cllr. Jessie Milne, Conservative (Lea Ward), presented the awards.

Whitehall makes it more expensive to move – as house sales plummet

New figures expose collapse in housing market across (area) thanks to Government

Giles McNeill today published new figures showing the extent of the collapse in the housing market across West Lindsey. This comes as new Government red tape will push up the cost of moving home – in the middle of a recession.

• Parliamentary Questions have revealed that across the country the number of housing sales in 2008 halved compared to 2006 levels. The latest national figures so far for 2009 show even sharper falls have happened this year. In West Lindsey, there were 1,296 housing sales in 2008, compared to 2,343 in 2006 – a fall of 45%.

• Yet new Whitehall rules will make it even harder for home buyers and sellers. The Government’s Land Registry is hiking fees in July to register a new home or to buy an official property search. Ironically, the Land Registry are blaming the recession for forcing them to put up prices as housing transactions have fallen so much, cutting their income.

• The increases in the costs of official searches will in turn increase the cost of the already expensive Home Information Packs (HIPs). This comes as new HIP rules came into effect in April which will further hinder sellers from putting their homes onto the market.

• Conservatives are calling on the Government Ministers to use their emergency powers to suspend HIPs immediately, and then abolish them completely. They are also calling for the stamp duty threshold for first-time buyers to be raised to £250,000, taking 9 out of 10 first-time buyers out of stamp duty altogether, giving an important boost to West Lindsey housing market.

Giles said:

“The new figures expose how Gordon Brown’s recession has sent West Lindsey's housing market into freefall. It is incredibly short-sighted for Labour Ministers to increase red tape on the housing market in the middle of a recession and make it even worse.

“We need action to revive the market, by reducing moving costs for home owners and giving extra help to help first-time buyers get onto the housing ladder.”

Plans to promote opportunity and neighbourhood pride in Lincolnshire

Giles McNeill welcomes innovative new housing policies to get Lincolnshire moving

Giles McNeill today welcomed plans for a radical overhaul of housing policy, thirty years on from the unveiling of the Right to Buy, which transformed council estates.

Under new Conservative proposals, tenants in social housing across Lincolnshire are to be offered the chance of genuine social mobility and equality of opportunity. Pride will be restored to local neighbourhoods, helping address anti-social behaviour and encourage social responsibility. Local homes will be built for local people, with the community – not bureaucrats in Whitehall – having the final say on the homes they want.

This comes as the latest analysis shows as the average house in Lincolnshire costs £164,255, compared to average earnings of £26,552. This means that the average house is 6.2 times average earnings.

The detailed proposals include:
• Rewards for good behaviour: Offering tenants with a record of five years’ good tenant behaviour a 10% equity share in their social rented property, which can be cashed in when they want to move up the housing ladder. This will give tenants a direct financial stake in the state of their neighbourhood, and reward law-abiding citizens who pay their rent on time, keep their garden tidy, and ensure their children stay out of trouble. By contrast, Labour policies reinforce and reward welfare dependency.
• A ‘Right to Move’: Introducing a comprehensive national mobility scheme for good tenants who wish to move to other social sector properties, and piloting a scheme which allows good social tenants to demand that their social landlord sell their current property and use the proceeds, minus transaction costs, to buy (and thereby bring into the social rented sector) another property of their choice – anywhere in England.
• Cutting waiting lists: Relaxing the rules that prevent thousands of habitable empty properties being used to house those on local authority waiting lists. 20,720 people are currently on the waiting lists in Lincolnshre, an increase of 47% since 1997.
• Local Housing Trusts: Allowing villages and towns to create entirely new community-led bodies with planning powers to develop local homes for local people, provided there is strong community backing. Affordable homes built by Local Housing Trusts will remain in local ownership in perpetuity, ensuring that future generations can benefit.
• More family homes and stopping garden grabbing: Reversing the classification of gardens as brownfield land, and allowing councils to prevent over-development of neighbourhoods and stop 'garden grabbing', which has resulted in a glut of flats, the demolition of suburban family homes and concreting over of their gardens.
• Incentives not top-down targets: Scrapping regional planning, and enabling councils to revise their current local plans to protect Green Belt land and prevent the unwanted imposition of so-called eco-towns. Instead, councils will keep more of the proceeds of new house building from council tax receipts, giving incentives to support new sustainable development.

Giles said:

“Given the average house in Lincolnshire is more than six times average earnings, we need to do more to help people get on and move up the housing ladder. We need social housing which promotes opportunity and social mobility, rather than reinforcing welfare dependency. We must also champion the vulnerable and help the 20,720 people on housing waiting lists in Lincolnshire.

“I welcome the plans to give an equity stake to social tenants in Lincolnshire. It will reward the socially responsible citizens who pay their rent on time and keep their kids in check, and help restore a sense of pride to all our neighbourhoods.”

Concern over ‘100% Affordable Homes’ Development at Saxilby

Residents of Saxilby will be aware that an application has been made to West Lindsey District Council, who are the local planning authority, to develop 8 Bungalows and 11Houses, by Waterloo Housing Group, at ‘greenfield’ land on Church Lane. This land is approximately 10 hectares (that’s about the same as 10 football pitches) and is currently in use as arable agricultural land.

The site lies outside the ‘Settlement Boundary’ as defined on the adopted First Review of the West Lindsey Local Plan – Policy STRAT 4/5/6. The applicant is therefore reliant on the Authority releasing the site using the Rural Exception Policy (Planning Policy Statement 3 (PPS3) paragraph 30 refers).

Notwithstanding the fundamental changes to national planning policy introduced by this Labour Government in 2005, It is my understanding that policies in the West Lindsey Local Plan are ‘held’ until the emerging documents, in form of a Local Development Framework, are adopted; probably not before 2011. The Local Development Framework will then take forward the ‘new plan’ to 2026.

During recent years, most local residents would agree that Saxilby has had its fair share of newly built ‘affordable/social-rented’ dwellings. Furthermore, several small sites suitable for this type of development have been identified within the present ‘Settlement Boundary’ (Brownfield sites); indeed, at least 3 sites are vacant, derelict and calling out for regeneration. Furthermore, Planning Policy Statement 3 also states that priority for development should be on ‘previously-developed’ land.

The Saxilby with Ingleby Housing Need Survey published in July 2006 quotes reasons for needs that are unsubstantiated, unconvincing and do not ‘cut it’ with ‘Middle England’ residents. Moreover, the West Lindsey Need Study published later that year, in November, is hardly convincing using 2 separate Models to estimate the net annual need across the whole district; Model 1 results in a figure of 198 and Model 2 reflects a figure of 518. These disparate exercises conducted at considerable cost to the taxpayer and in the light of the current economic conditions, suggest that any rush into false conclusions and planning options would be, to most observers, unwise until the housing market recedes to a sustainable level.

In the circumstances, any encroachment onto ‘greenfield’ land at this time is totally unjustified. Indeed, approval of the application would clearly not demonstrate ‘joined-up’ planning objectives. The field on which the subject site is located would be capable of accepting anything between 315 to 515 dwellings at the density figures quoted in Planning Policy Statement 3. Not surprisingly, residents in the near vicinity perceive a mini ‘Ermine Estate’ in the making with all the related social and security concerns.

In consideration of the planning application (123430) in context with the West Lindsey Local Plan First Review indicates further reasons to oppose any encroachment beyond the defined ‘Settlement Boundary’. In particular:
Policy Res 6 – Affordable Housing states: at para 1.46, that:

“ ‘exceptions’ provisions do not override long established national and planning policies controlling development in open countryside.”

Policy Res 7 – Rural Exceptions Housing states at para 1.48 sub para iv, that:

“This policy will apply to small rural communities, therefore sites on the fringe of the Unban Area of Lincoln... and the villages identified as Primary Rural Settlements will not be considered appropriate.”

Furthermore, farmland extending westwards from the site is rural in character so ‘affordable dwellings’ in isolation would be detrimental to the visual amenity and nature of the surrounding countryside. Indeed, approaching the village from the northwest along the lane from Torksey affords the traveller fine views onto the rising terrain towards St Botolph’s Church, the only Grade 1 Listed Building in the Parish. Moreover, the visual amenity is further enhanced by the ancient ‘ridge and furrow’ grassland located beyond the junction of Sykes Lane and Church Lane.

Accordingly, I consider encroachment of development on land outside the present ‘Settlement Boundary’ is totally unacceptable before adoption of the Local Development Framework which will occur, hopefully, after full and meaningful community consultation during the adoption process; a far cry from the alert of this application pronounced on a grubby Planning Notice posted on a way pole in a country lane. I therefore strongly of the opinion that the application be refused on grounds of that it is inconsistent with the stated local & national planning objectives and the desired will of local residents.






Giles McNeill
Local Conservative Action Team Co-Ordinator (Nettleham & Saxilby)