Work has begun on the build of over 140 new council homes at sites across Bristol. The next phase of the council’s new build programme will see the new properties located at the former Cameron Centre site in Lockleaze, Leinster Avenue in Knowle West and Filwood Broadway.
In the coming months, work will also start at Branwhite Close and Romney Avenue in Lockleaze, the former Greville Elderly Person’s Home in Stockwood and on the former Brunel Ford garage on Muller Road, delivering more than 100 new social rented and shared ownership homes. Councillor Barry Parsons, Chair of the Homes and Housing Delivery Committee, said: “I am delighted that our new build programme is continuing at pace.
“We are committed to increasing the number of well-built, affordable homes in Bristol so that many more people will have a comfortable, energy efficient place they can call home. We also need to make sure that any homes we build complement the local area and enable people to become part of the local community.
“Every property we build is important, and we are doing everything we can to accelerate our building programme working within the budget constraints facing the council. We also know that we cannot meet affordable housing needs alone, and we are working with Registered Provider partners and other organisations across the city to deliver much needed affordable homes for Bristol.”
The Housing Delivery team has a further seven sites currently under construction delivering 130 new council homes, and have just completed 28 homes at St Peters in Horfield, with 57 homes in Lawrence Weston and 16 at New Kingsland in Henbury due to complete over the next few weeks. This brings the total number of homes built by the Housing Delivery team to nearly 500 since the programme began in 2014.
The new build housing programme aims to use smaller brownfield sites across Bristol to provide new, high quality council homes. All homes have a high standard of environmental sustainability and provide excellent thermal insulation. The heating systems are either ground source or air source heat pumps which provide the heating and hot water for the development. This will result in energy efficient properties which will see household utility bills dramatically reduced.
The Housing Delivery team is currently working on the future pipeline of developments which will provide a longer-term programme of delivery of new council homes to meet the needs of the city. The council said it is also exploring the use of innovative, low-carbon Modern Methods of Construction (MMC), which can help to increase the scale and pace of the delivery of high quality, sustainable, affordable homes in the city.