Housing Tour 2012 Linda Nash

Project visited Tresham Site Bridle Road – Burton Latimer Naseby Road Margaret Road - Roofs and Doors Rosewood Place Sackville Street

Tresham Site Kettering The scheme consists of 48 homes (40 affordable and 8 outright sale) and 59 retirement units. The affordable housing element is made up 1 and 2 bed flats for rent, 2, 3 and 4 bed houses for rent and shared ownership and 2 and 3 bed houses for outright sale. Local Agents have indicated a lot of interest in the scheme already.

Bridle Road Burton Latimer This project is Waterloo Housing’s first in Kettering Borough. It has proved a very popular scheme and the properties could have been let several times over. The scheme has made a massive contribution towards our affordable housing completions over 2011/12 and 2012/13. Phase 1 was completed in March 2011 and phase 2 completed in May/June These two phases consist of a mixture of family houses for social rent and shared ownership. All properties are managed by De Montfort Housing.

Naseby Road Kettering At Naseby Road, we had an opportunity to view two of our empty properties. They were both returned in poor condition and the level of work needed to bring the properties to our Minimum Lettable Standard was significant

Margaret Road Kettering Since 2006 we have fitted 3,100 new FireSafe GRP (Fibreglass Reinforced Plastic) composite door sets. Each new door set costs approximately £450 to supply and fit, including all frames and door furniture. Last year we carried out a roof replacement programme with a budget of £145,000, covering properties in Cranford, Rothwell and Desborough.

Rosewood Place Kettering Work commenced in January The first phase of the work was within the property boundaries of the 18 homes. This included installing canopies and bin store areas, security fencing, driveways and front brick walls with railings. This work will be completed by the end of June Phase two included block paving to the road and pavement and started in September 2011 and was completed inFebruary 2012

Sackville Street Kettering Hollyoak Court, Sackville Street, has had some serious anti-social problems over the years. The three bocks consists of bed sits and one bedroom flats, therefore they attract on the whole single people As well as physical improvements being carried out, we also looked at what we could do to enhance the community balance in the area, and we agreed that a local lettings criteria be set for all new tenancies in the blocks We now have a number of new tenants and it appears at this stage that the anti-social problems have been abated

Conclusion “The tour was informative and better as we didn’t have to spend to long on the coach. It proves, less is better” “It would be good to follow the progress of the voids at Naseby Road” “Overall the tour was a compete one covering all we wanted to see, new properties and modernised ones. A good insight onto where the money available is best spent, the tour was very well compiled and organised, well done”