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Selwood Housing, a local housing association based in Wiltshire, has secured planning permission to transform the disused former Margaret Stancomb school site in Trowbridge, into much needed affordable housing.
The town centre site has been derelict for over ten years, since the former school joined with Bellefield primary school.
Barry Hughes, Selwood Housing Group chief executive said, "As a local housing association based in Trowbridge, we're delighted that our plans to develop this brownfield site have been well received. Our plans are to regenerate this site sympathetically, centered around the 19th century school building, which we will retain and convert into 3 shared ownership homes. We will also build a further 18 affordable homes on the site for both shared ownership and social rent. The shared ownership homes will help local families get on to the housing ladder and homes for social rent provide lower cost rented homes on a secure basis."
Housing associations are a key provider of new homes in the UK. In the 12 months up to and including December 2018, housing associations started building 44,770 homes, according to the National Housing Federation.
Barry Hughes added, "We are due to begin works on the development in July this year, with the first homes due to be completed in spring 2020. We had a really positive response to the news we had purchased this site, which holds a lot of memories for many local people. We will be updating our website and social media pages with news as work progresses."
Phil Barnes, associate director from construction company E G Carter & Go LTD said, "We are delighted to have supported Selwood Housing Group in securing planning permission for the redevelopment of the former Margaret Stancomb school, and are looking forward to commencing works in the coming weeks."
If you have any questions regarding the former Margaret Stancomb school site, please call us on 01225 715 715.
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Selwood Housing is a not-for-profit housing association with over 6,400 homes for rent at affordable prices in Wiltshire, Somerset and Bath and North East Somerset. We also offer shared ownership, and other schemes to provide a wide variety of homes for people living in our communities. Any surpluses we make are invested back into our communities and this includes building more affordable homes locally.
There is a housing crisis and a shortage of affordable homes in the UK. In the Trowbridge Community area there are currently 346 households in need of a range of affordable rented homes, from one bedroom upwards.
There are also 155 households registered for shared ownership.
The Margaret Stancomb site development is part of our plan to provide more affordable homes within Wiltshire, Mendip and BANES.
Shared ownership is a great way of buying your own home, without having to find a huge deposit up front. With shared ownership you can buy a share of a home and pay a low rent on the rest. This gives you a great alternative to renting, if you can't afford to buy a home outright.
To find out more, visit https://www.selwoodhousing.com/find-a-home/buy-a-home/sharedownership/
You can register your details with us but you must also register with Help to Buy South https://www.helptobuysouth.co.uk/.
They will be competitively priced and based on market values. Buyers can purchase a 40% share and pay a low rent on the rest. Prices for this development will be released close to when the homes are available.
We plan to keep the original school building and convert it into three shared ownership homes.
If our planning application is approved, we will agree with Wiltshire Council the cost of supporting a set number of school places. Before we start building works we will pay this school contribution to Wiltshire Council. This is called a section 106 agreement.
We will also make other section 106 contributions which we will agree with Wiltshire Council.
Following the submission of the proposed site plans, Wiltshire Council will then hold a formal consultation period where you can comment on or object to the plans. Details of the plans and how to comment will be on Wiltshire Council’s website. Wiltshire Council’s planning committee will then decide whether to grant planning permission for our proposed development.
