Mill Road development
Published: 18 July 2024
The Trust is getting very close to being in a position to make a start on the construction of its housing project in Mill Road.
When we last updated you in the February newsletter, we were hopeful of starting construction work in March. We did make an early start on preparing the temporary construction access road from Foxbury Lane, to avoid harmful impact on bird nesting, but we were not able to start the main work on construction of the proposed new houses.
The reason for this delay was that the Trust needs to be registered as a provider of social housing. We had been working on our submission for registration for many months, but it has proved to be a more complex and demanding process that we anticipated. We could not commence the house construction work until we had achieved this certification. We are pleased to confirm that we have now been approved as a Registered Provider of Social Housing and we can move forward with the development.
We remain ready to go and our contractor Ascia Construction Ltd is also ready to go. There are a few more details to finalise but we are targeting early September for a start on construction work and will confirm the exact date with all members and the wider Westbourne community as soon as it is agreed.
We are now discussing with the contractor and the Parish Council the arrangements for public access to the park whilst construction is taking place. At some point the park will need to be closed to public access for a temporary period until the house construction work and the park improvements are fully completed. We will let you know what is intended as soon as we can.
During the construction work access to the allotment site will be maintained from Mill Road with a new temporary gate way and parking will take place on the existing access road, with a new turning head.
We are really looking forward to making a start on this scheme after six years since the formation of Westbourne Community Trust. A huge amount of hard work has been undertaken by a dedicated team of Trustees, to make new homes available for local people who are priced out of the housing market in Westbourne. If all goes smoothly we will be able to provide these new affordable social rented houses that Westbourne so badly needs by Autumn of 2025.